- Feb 13, 2014
- 3
- 0
- 10,510
About 2-3 weeks ago I built a new gaming PC with an FX-8320 and an XFX 7870. Up until a few days ago everything ran fine, all games ran without a hitch, I had no crashes or problems booting etc.
However, a couple of days ago I noticed that every so often (maybe once or twice a day tops) the screen would flicker briefly. Because it was so infrequent I shrugged it off.
Fast forward to about 3 hours ago, I was playing Civilization V and my screen suddenly went black. (Should have saved more god damn frequently!) Because the typical Ctrl+Alt+Del and Alt+Tab functions were having no result I assumed the whole PC had frozen and hit the shut down button.
To be 100% sure that it is a GPU issue I stuck my dustly old 6670 in and everything booted up perfectly.
TL;DR After the Windows logo my screen would just go black. When I managed to get back on to my PC once it lasted 20 minutes then the screen froze again but I still had audio. The only way I could get an image displayed after that was to boot in safe mode or switch to an old GPU. All my drivers are up to date. I have no idea what's wrong with it!
Brand new XFX 7870, 2/3 weeks old. I haven't even bothered to overclock it yet.
If it's even important, I also have:
AMD FX-8320
Kingston 60GB SSD
Western Digital 2TB HDD
ASUS M5a97 R2.0
Corsair CX600M Builder Series
8GB (2x4) Corsair DDR3 RAM
If anyone can help me solve this dastardly riddle it will be greatly appreciated! I'd be happy using my 6670 but anything lower than 30FPS messes with my allergies.
However, a couple of days ago I noticed that every so often (maybe once or twice a day tops) the screen would flicker briefly. Because it was so infrequent I shrugged it off.
Fast forward to about 3 hours ago, I was playing Civilization V and my screen suddenly went black. (Should have saved more god damn frequently!) Because the typical Ctrl+Alt+Del and Alt+Tab functions were having no result I assumed the whole PC had frozen and hit the shut down button.
Here's where it gets weird. When I started it up I began the typical troubleshooting, first checking the BIOS for temperatures to make sure it wasn't a heating problem. Nothing was over 30 degrees Celsius, bar my CPU which was at 50.
When starting up the Windows 8.1 logo would display as expected, and then either the screen would go black or take me to the system restore screen. None of the options would have any impact, however.
Eventually after maybe 20 reboots and automatic restarts I looked back at my monitor to see that it was back at the login screen. I logged in as usual and everything worked fine. 20 minutes later my computer froze again, but rather than a full black screen it had frozen with brown filling the screen. A same shade of brown that was already on the screen prior to it freezing.
I was in a Skype call at the time, and after my PC seemingly freezing again, I could still hear them and they could still hear me. After attempting to restart my PC I was back to square one, a loop of reboots and black screens.
I could however boot Windows in Safe Mode and it would display everything correctly. I tried uninstalling the drivers and then rebooting out of Safe Mode. I saw the login screen for maybe 3/4 seconds and then the screen went black again.
When starting up the Windows 8.1 logo would display as expected, and then either the screen would go black or take me to the system restore screen. None of the options would have any impact, however.
Eventually after maybe 20 reboots and automatic restarts I looked back at my monitor to see that it was back at the login screen. I logged in as usual and everything worked fine. 20 minutes later my computer froze again, but rather than a full black screen it had frozen with brown filling the screen. A same shade of brown that was already on the screen prior to it freezing.
I was in a Skype call at the time, and after my PC seemingly freezing again, I could still hear them and they could still hear me. After attempting to restart my PC I was back to square one, a loop of reboots and black screens.
I could however boot Windows in Safe Mode and it would display everything correctly. I tried uninstalling the drivers and then rebooting out of Safe Mode. I saw the login screen for maybe 3/4 seconds and then the screen went black again.
To be 100% sure that it is a GPU issue I stuck my dustly old 6670 in and everything booted up perfectly.
TL;DR After the Windows logo my screen would just go black. When I managed to get back on to my PC once it lasted 20 minutes then the screen froze again but I still had audio. The only way I could get an image displayed after that was to boot in safe mode or switch to an old GPU. All my drivers are up to date. I have no idea what's wrong with it!
Brand new XFX 7870, 2/3 weeks old. I haven't even bothered to overclock it yet.
If it's even important, I also have:
AMD FX-8320
Kingston 60GB SSD
Western Digital 2TB HDD
ASUS M5a97 R2.0
Corsair CX600M Builder Series
8GB (2x4) Corsair DDR3 RAM
If anyone can help me solve this dastardly riddle it will be greatly appreciated! I'd be happy using my 6670 but anything lower than 30FPS messes with my allergies.
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