Laptop keeps freezing and fading to white.

[psychospacecow]

My laptop just suddenly froze and is fading to white. It is doing it repeatedly as I type this. Any ideas? 

Its a Lenovo Z50, and I've never seen this before. I restarted after it happened and it seems to have stopped but its running notably slow now. I'm confident this will not be the last of this event.

[Vipershark]

That's happened to me before on a couple laptops but it's really rare on my end. The fade to white is really weird and just kind of happens sometimes but I don't know what causes it. It's always been fixed by rebooting for me and has never become a constant issue.

If it keeps happening, it could be a hardware issue.

[Skyla Doragono]

Sudden or fades to white are indicative of a hardware issue, yes; this is typically because of the screen itself. Rare cases it's because of a driver getting corrupted however; considering the freezing issues, I'm more willing to believe driver trouble than hardware.

[psychospacecow]

I waited a few minutes, then hopped on civ 5 for a few turns with no problem afterwards. I haven't gotten on HOTS on that laptop since it did that so it might have played a part but that'd be new info to me. Also, this is a Lenovo laptop, and its one of the ones that had the super fish thing so my image of their quality control is kinda low. It had glitches when Windows 10 came out and I updated that aren't going on now, so it might be one of those.

[psychospacecow]

Happened again just now. Restarted just now and it hasn't happened since restart. Was near another computer since its a tiny table. Definitely think its heat related. Was playing Hearthstone.

[Petie]

It absolutely sounds heat related given the symptoms and what I've read here and on VGFacts. If you haven't already done so and are comfortable giving it a shot, I'd recommend opening it up and cleaning out any dust on the fan and exhaust vent. My old school laptop did something similar and it was due to overheating caused by lack of air circulation.

[psychospacecow]

That'll be something for the weekend if I can find the time and some instructions. I'm not too computer savvy, but I've been meaning to examine the cd tray anyway. (It popped out randomly one day.)

[Skyla Doragono]

Might want to check if your fan is still running too. If you can't hear it normally, try downloading and running Speedfan to see if your fan's still running properly.

[Gors]

low budget fix:

you know those egg trays?



find one and put your laptop over it. The bumps allow air to pass under the laptop too, and it might help cooling the system down. Don'r forget to check your fan, too.

[Kosheh]

That'll be something for the weekend if I can find the time and some instructions. I'm not too computer savvy, but I've been meaning to examine the cd tray anyway. (It popped out randomly one day.)

It always boggles me when I hear that someone's a PC gamer and isn't computer savvy. 
You'd think the two would go like, hand-in-hand :/ That's...the first time I've ever heard of a screen fading to white, though. 

In line with everyone else's advice: get some canned air and blow out the vents of the laptop. Except if it's a dust-related issue, it's probably (and unfortunately) too late for you to do much about it. :/
Also, don't forget to check Lenovo's site - there's a lot of updated drivers that Lenovo's put out and it'd probably be worth your while to install each of them!

Things you'll want to try: 

- Does it happen when you move the screen a certain way?
If so, there's an issue with your laptop's ribbon cable. Either replace the screen, or purchase a new laptop. :/ If your laptop is >4 years old then it's probably about time...

- Try working with the laptop on external monitor. 
If it works fine when you plug it in to a monitor, it's either a driver or hardware issue (I'd probably troubleshoot the former first; move onto the former) 
Either scenario, yep, points to a new screen. :/ But hey you're using it on a monitor - you can just mod the laptop to go headless

- If neither works, then your heatsink's probably shit the bed; the compound responsible for Keepin' It Cool has dried up.
Your only choice here is to take apart the machine and open up the heatsink, blow out all the dust and replace the heatsink compound.

Of course this is kind of a pain in the ass so you might wanna ask a tech-competent friend to give you a hand with that.
But yeah that's all I can think of for now. Let us know how things turn out I guess. :/

[psychospacecow]

Already went to Lenovo's website for drivers. I'm genuinely paranoid to do that because mine was one of the superfish'd ones or whatever that called it. Today is one of my long days so I won't be able to do much, but I should hopefully be able to work something out tomorrow. Got it in December of last year.