Hardware stub

Skyrim minimize black-screen and crash fix

Posted on November 12, 2011

UPDATE: We have posted a complete Skyrim glitch-fix guide, found here. If you're experiencing crashes or glitches, check it out for more detailed help.

Skyrim's big release has not been free from its share of video hangs and crashes; we noticed earlier while playing that minimizing and maximizing Skyrim often resulted in a black-screen graphics hang. There's an easy workaround to fix Skyrim's screen going blank on maximizing that we've detailed below -- it's certainly no permanent fix, but for now, it's an easy workaround that anyone can do for Skyrim on the PC.

skyrim-dragon2

Follow these steps to successfully restore Skyrim and avoid an alt-F4 of doom:

 

1. Minimize Skyrim

2. When you're done looking up cheat codes, Maximize Skyrim.

3. When the notorious black-screen window comes up (with no 'x' or 'minimize' options showing), press ctrl+shift+esc to pop-up the task manager.

4. Close task manager immediately. This will re-activate Skyrim as the active window. You should notice that it is now full screen and the process bar at the top vanishes.

Hopefully this fixed your issue! Keep an eye out on our site for additional Skyrim tweaks as the weekend rolls on.

If you're still looking for a PC to try Skyrim on, why not try out our $550 PC build list we put together?