Intermittent Black Screen

My laptop is showing an intermittent black screen, lasts maybe a fraction of a second and only happens randomly -- doesn't seem to be any specific thing I'm doing. For instance, I've had my laptop on for five hours today and it's happened three, maybe four times, and it has only been going on for maybe a week. I use it mostly for various data processing (family medical records, misc. documents, genealogy research, letter writing, etc.), reading blogs and news, and Pinterest. I do not use it for any type of gaming. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

My laptop specs:
(gift to me from my son in 12/2019)
Model: HP Streaming Laptop 14-cb1xx
Intel Celeron N4000 CPU @ 1.10GHz 1.10GHz
RAM: 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit OS, x64-based processor
Windows 10 Home

 

Pretty much impossible to tell what is happening when it only lasts for fractions of a second. If it lasted for several seconds or minutes, I would suggest you shine a flashlight into the screen, with your nose right up to the screen. If, when blacked out, you could still see a very faint Windows desktop, that would indicate your backlighting is failing - as opposed to losing the signal to the screen.

I recommend you attach an external monitor to the laptop. Use the appropriate Fn + F-key combination to display on both the laptop monitor and external monitor. Then see if the blackouts occur on the external monitor too. If not, the problem is with the laptop monitor somewhere. If it happens on both monitors, the problem is with the laptop's graphics solution, or the laptop itself.

If you don't have an external monitor, most TVs made in recent years support computer input.

There's no industry standard for which Fn + F-Key combination flips through the monitor settings. On my Toshiba, it was Fn +F5. On my MSI laptop, it is Fn +F11.

 

Thank you, Bill, I will have to try your suggestions when I can get over to my son's house ... no other monitor and we don't own a tv (by choice). Much appreciated!

 

Okay. Keep us posted.