Win11 desktop repeatedly re-rendering??

[MAXBattle]

An older family member has a fairly new Dell All In One running Windows 11.  They keep a ton of files on the desktop and were copying and moving some scan-to-PDF files when the Windows desktop started freaking out. In the span of a couple of seconds, it goes black, shows wallpaper, shows the desktop (icons), shows just the wallpaper, shows the desktop, rinse and repeat. Neither keyboard presses nor mouse buttons register an action on the desktop, BUT the mouse pointer zips around the screen fairly well.  CTRL-ALT-DEL does bring up Task Manager and it looks normal. The TM is steady, but the desktop keeps re-rendering in the background.  CPU pegged around 80%, Wifi was pretty active until I took router offline, and GPU & drive usage both low.

 

Tried restart / reboot and the "flashing" comes back.  Again, NOTHING else (login screen, BIOS, Task Manager, etc) flashes.  When I try to Win 11 Troubleshooting / Safe Mode, it keeps asking for BitLocker code, even though BitLocker was never set up.  Wondering if recent Win 11 update is a coincidence.

 

It feels like Windows is stuck in a loop trying to render something on the desktop, is failing, and then retrying.  What would happen if the user accidentally copied all of the desktop files & shortcuts and the result was too many icons for the desktop?  Could that cause this?  If so, why wouldn't rebooting stop the paste?

 

Anyone ever see anything like this?  

[JeffreyLF]

Reinstall your graphics driver maybe? That's the first thing I would try. What's the dell model? Or if you go to https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us?app=products and enter your service tag it will allow you to download updates for your pc. I would also update the bios if that is available for your PC.

 

If you never set up bitlocker that is rather strange. I would maybe guess that is malicious and do a virus scan but that is just me and would probably come up clear anyways.

 

Report back after trying the bios update and driver update if it doesn't work, good luck!

[MAXBattle]

49 minutes ago, JeffreyLF said:

Reinstall your graphics driver maybe? That's the first thing I would try. What's the dell model? Or if you go to https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us?app=products and enter your service tag it will allow you to download updates for your pc. I would also update the bios if that is available for your PC.

 

If you never set up bitlocker that is rather strange. I would maybe guess that is malicious and do a virus scan but that is just me and would probably come up clear anyways.

 

Report back after trying the bios update and driver update if it doesn't work, good luck!

Problem is that I cannot do anything on the computer except activate Task Manager.  I can't access the device manager or the browser (for the Dell support thing).  It won't even let me get into Safe Mode or Uninstall Updates or anything else because of the way Dell set things up.

 

I did a bit of research and Microsoft says that "modern" computers that shipped with Windows 11 may have BitLocker automatically activated.  This came with Win11 preinstalled and is less than a year old, so it qualifies.  So, "YAY for new Microsoft security measures."  

 

I considered the graphics driver, but no other display elements are impacted.  The Task Manager is the normal, stable image, as is the login page.  It is literally only the Desktop causing problems.  I need to figure a way to get any other thing on the screen besides the Desktop and the Task Manager.

[MAXBattle]

After messing with it for a little while longer, I found a way to open File Manager.  It also rendered normally, even though Desktop was flashing in the background.  I went to the Desktop folder and deleted all of the new scan PDF's and shortcuts and that fixed things.  I didn't dig into the deleted files and shortcuts, but I suspect there might've been a circular reference or similar. 

[JeffreyLF]

10 hours ago, MAXBattle said:

After messing with it for a little while longer, I found a way to open File Manager.  It also rendered normally, even though Desktop was flashing in the background.  I went to the Desktop folder and deleted all of the new scan PDF's and shortcuts and that fixed things.  I didn't dig into the deleted files and shortcuts, but I suspect there might've been a circular reference or similar. 

Well that's good, glad it's workin for ya 

[MAXBattle]

9 minutes ago, JeffreyLF said:

Well that's good, glad it's workin for ya 

Thanks.  It was just a matter of going back to first principles for tech support:  "What changed right before the problem started?"