ASUS Laptop screen briefly turns off when connect/remove power cord (with demo video)

Question

I have no idea what is causing this truly bizarre problem. Whenever I connect or disconnect my power cable for my brand-new laptop, the screen briefly turns off (2-4 seconds). Its really annoying and I would like to know what is causing it, or how to fix it... if it is fixable at all. I haven't seen any other reports of this problem across any forums I know, yet it seems the display model at Best Buy has the same issue mine does. It doesn't seem like a malfunction, it looks more like the way the screen turns off briefly when I disable one of my GPUs or change the screen resolution or whatever. My best guess might be that it is using the built-in Intel GPU when on battery and the GTX 1060 when plugged in, but I'm not sure how I might test that theory. I upgraded from an ASUS ROG GL551JW from 2015, which didn't have this quirk.

Hardware: ASUS ROG GU501GM with no customization, includes GTX 1060 card and Intel i7 8th gen CPU

Software: Windows 10, newest version

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFs4fVmQ9LI

Solution

I managed to solve it! Thanks to Best Buy GeekSquad for suggesting I take a closer look at the Intel Graphics settings, and this post for giving me the clues I needed: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/screen-goes-black-for-a-second-when-ac-adapter-is/24d13839-b1f0-4f72-af79-7f192c024c2f

Basically the problem was in the Intel UHD Graphics Control Panel (not the Windows Control Panel). To fix it, I had to go to Power > On Battery > Global Settings > Display Refresh Rate Switching, and set it to Disable. I guess the Intel graphics chip has a poorly-documented "feature" that lowers the screen refresh rate from 120Hz to 60Hz when running on battery, and this shift requires the screen to restart.

ASUS technical support was unable to figure it out after multiple phone/chat sessions, but the Best Buy guy was able to point me at a solution before I even finished describing the problem :D

Comments

[Ravindra Bawane]

First place to start is drivers and firmware with any issue like this.Visit the ASUS support page for your computer, BUT also go to the manufacturer page for the specific hardware (nVidia, Intel, etc) as the drivers on ASUS site can be out of date by several years in many cases. Download and install ALL the updated drivers and system firmware and then test to see if the issue persists.

[Peter.G]

Do you have any other issue after screen turn off. If not, maybe this situation is resulted by computer's power protection mechanism. You can visit ASUS and check whether the mechanism exist.

[Brian H]

I did contact an ASUS technician, he confirmed that this is NOT intended behavior. His advice was very unhelpful tho, things like "make sure the BIOS is up to date" (it is) and "try updating the drivers for the battery".