Being absolutely tortured by lock screen lock ups...please help!

Still happening. At absolute wit's end with this. Nothing I do fixes it. I feel like Windows 10 is fundamentally broken and everything I've tried hasn't worked. Or at least, trying to get to the root of the problem hasn't worked. Two months I've been afflicted with this, and I have to admit it's getting me down.

One point to note - it NEARLY happened earlier, but instead of it going to the black screen and staying there, after I'd inputted password and hit return, it bounced straight back from the black screen to the lock screen again, instead of going into the user account like it should have.

I literally have no idea what could possibly be causing this, I don't even know where to start. I can't tell if it's hardware, software?

One thing I'll say, it didn't happen with the 1611 ( right?) build pre-November, it was only the November one it started happening with, but I only went to November because the store apps weren't fully compatible with 1611.

If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears. I can't even give up because I need the gaming performance Windows 10 gives me, compared to what 7 gives me. If it wasn't for that, I'd have given up with 10 weeks ago.

Thereafter, I got my compatibility, but reliability went to hell.

Arc said:

Please provide a list of things that you have tried?

The only two notable things, other than the PLL setting you provided and the cummulative update of recent days, are disabling all tray apps and now uninstalling Malware Bytes.

I am also currently in the process of trying something else; I have disabled passwords for all user logins.

This is like a needle in a haystack.

Arc said:

Yes, it is. But it needs proper planning.

Next, let us play attention to the display/graphics section. Do the following:
► Break the SLI, run the computer with every single card separately.
► Stress test the Graphics Cards using Furmark.

FurMark - GPU Stress Test

Take a screenshot of the furmark window before closing it. Upload the screenshot for us. Also let us know if you have experienced any crash/BSOD and/or artifacts during the test.
► Try an alternative nvidia display driver version, preferably doing a clean driver install. NVIDIA Drivers - Avoid Problems
► Check in the BIOS. If there is an option to rest the display, keep it off.
See how it goes.

I will turn to this lot if my current solution stops working, but that's over 48 hours now without a black screen. All because I removed passwords. But I would ask if any of that was the solution, why is it not affecting Windows 7?

Arc said:

Yes, it is. But it needs proper planning.

Next, let us play attention to the display/graphics section. Do the following:
► Break the SLI, run the computer with every single card separately.
► Stress test the Graphics Cards using Furmark.

FurMark - GPU Stress Test

Take a screenshot of the furmark window before closing it. Upload the screenshot for us. Also let us know if you have experienced any crash/BSOD and/or artifacts during the test.
► Try an alternative nvidia display driver version, preferably doing a clean driver install. NVIDIA Drivers - Avoid Problems
► Check in the BIOS. If there is an option to rest the display, keep it off.
See how it goes.

So I got another black screen the other day, hence have returned to this. Like you say, systematic planning.

My first step was to remove the second 980ti - break the SLI as you say. I have also tested with Furmark - it was flawless and got to about 81C. I've already had the black screens on previous Nvidia drivers so it's not a driver issue. I don't quite understand the display rest option? The screen is definitely not resting during the black screen - cursor is there and windows + P dialogue works.

But I want to see if this is indeed a problem we can isolate to the SLI setup or indeed a faulty second card. But I do reiterate, any reason this didn't happen on Windows 7 based on the hardware solutions you've provided? PS I am grateful for your help so please don't take this as ingratitude.

Cheers.