Blank screen/no signal on monitor after updating CPU and new drivers. Faulty card, board or CPU?

[mr_anthrope]

Hey guys,

Bear with me, this is a long post, because I'm having a slightly difficult problem. I would really appreciate your help. To make things easier, I will spell well

So, I just took the plunge and upgraded my CPU after 3 years from a 1090T to an FX-8350, to get my PC Watch Dogs-ready.

The relevant other bits of my config are as follows:
MoBo: Asus M5 A97 R2.0 (1.5 years old)
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 670 (1 year old)
RAM: 8GB G.Skill 1600MHz (6 months - 1.5 years old)
PSU: Corsair TX 750 V2 (1 year old)
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 + 4 additional fans in a CM Gladiator 600 case. (1-2 years old)
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit)

So, I replaced the 1090T with the 8350 (was apprehensive because getting the TX3 bracket to fit can be a nightmare), but got it going. PC booted and CoreTemp reported around 15 C on idle which is decent for the Bombay summer at a sweltering 38 C.

I took the gaming for a quick spin with Arkham Origins (everything ultra) and it ran beautifully for the 15 minutes I was in it. Ran Wolfenstein: The New Order and that was fine too. I did a happy dance and went out to grab dinner while Watch Dogs installed.

After this, three key things (to my mind) happened:
1. There was some kind of power fluctuation in the house, where all the lights and appliances flickered for a second. PC remained on through this. It is attached to a spike guard.
2. I cleaned out my case a little, getting rid of dust. Also reseated the GPU, but while removing it, it got stuck in the PCI-E port, and had to struggle a bit with the clip on the mobo to get it out. Was a bit of pulling involved.
3. I downloaded the latest nVidia drivers (337.88 for Watch Dogs)

With everything ready, I launched Watch Dogs, and promptly, within 30 seconds of the first cutscene, my monitor went blank, saying "No Signal". The audio continued to play for a bit, although I realised the music was just on loop, and the PC was effectively dead and unresponsive.. All fans still running, HDD still showing activity. I thought it might be a driver or game glitch, and rebooted. Same situation again.

I then ran Wolfenstein : TNO - same result within 5 seconds of gameplay. Blank screen with no signal, all fans and lights running, including those on the GPU. Switched to Arkham Origins. Same result.

After checking all connections, I re-installed the driver and tried again, with the same result. HOWEVER, on average, one out of three of these crashes would result in an error message saying "OpenGL detected a problem with the display driver" or something to that effect with an "Error Code : 3"

I looked through the Windows event viewer and saw a bunch of errors/warnings corresponding to the freezes with the games.
They were broadly of two types (these aren't verbatim).
1. "Application xyz was blocked from accessing the display adapter"
2. "*nVidia driver file.dll* has failed but successfully recovered"

Here's what I've tried so far:
1. I figured it might be a driver issue, but rolling back drivers hasn't helped.
2. I've switched around all the RAM sticks and rotated them. No go.
3. Reseated GPU a number of times. Nada.
4. Ran Prime95 for 8 hours to see if it's the CPU that's overloaded/overheating. Ran smoothly, no issues
5. Ran FurMark for about 30 minutes, GPU survived it, hitting around 75 C at peak.
6. Flashed latest BIOS.
7. Ran Memtest86 and it hasn't thrown up any errors.

I'm really stumped by this and can't seem to isolate the cause. To my mind, it's either the GPU or the board that has developed the fault, but RMA procedures take weeks (for even just checking hardware out) here in Mumbai, so I really want to be sure before giving something in to the shop. Also, the elephant in the room is the processor, because it's the newest component.

Also worth mentioning, it seems to run less intensive games like Dark Souls : PTD Edition with no problem whatsoever (I played for around half an hour with no issues), but the moment I but in a more intensive game like Watch Dogs, Arkham Origins or Wolfenstein, it crashes to an unresponsive blank screen within seconds of gameplay.Along with the crash to blank screen, there's now also almost always a buzzing robotic sound of the audio freezing

Suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated, because all our fabulous Indian technicians recommend is to "do a system restore and see what happens" :-/

Thanks

 

[rishiswaz]

I think you may have damaged you PCIe slot, try putting it in the second large slot (the black one) and see if that fixes the problem. You are still under the ASUS warranty period (probably, I know it is 36 months for North America, check your documentation or the ASUS website for your own warranty) so try to claim the warranty and see what they say. If they deny your warranty claim then you might have to get a new motherboard. You are not having CPU issues so you probably didn't bend any pins and even if you did, some of them are non essential and you got lucky on that.

 

[mr_anthrope]

I think you may have damaged you PCIe slot, try putting it in the second large slot (the black one) and see if that fixes the problem. You are still under the ASUS warranty period (probably, I know it is 36 months for North America, check your documentation or the ASUS website for your own warranty) so try to claim the warranty and see what they say. If they deny your warranty claim then you might have to get a new motherboard. You are not having CPU issues so you probably didn't bend any pins and even if you did, some of them are non essential and you got lucky on that.

I was excited by your suggestion because it didn't occur to me that I had another PCI-E slot free.
I just tried the card in the second slot as well, but nothing has changed. It was the exact same result. Black screen in just a few seconds of gameplay.

Thanks for the idea, but sadly it isn't the solution

 

[rishiswaz]

I think then you may have damaged a pin in the PCIe slot and that in turn has damaged one of the contacts on the graphics card. First try another graphics card in the second slot (not the one that may have damaged because that might mess up the one you are using to test the system with). If another card works that means you messed up the card by putting it in that PCIe slot or some software error so try to exchange your graphics card. I am not sure how to test that slot though without potentially damaging a card so if your second slot runs at x16 speed then you should be good to go without it but you will not be able to crossfire/SLI. If the second card does not work then something went wrong on your motherboard and you will need to return or exchange that.

 

[mr_anthrope]

Hey guys,

Still having no luck. I really doubt it's an issue with the PCI-E slot because the outcome seems to be the same on both.
I've been playing light games like DotA 2 for a couple of hours today and had no issues, but the moment I push it to a game that's demanding, it dies.

Another interesting bit of information. Spoke to a friend of mine. He said he had an almost identical issue with his PC a few months ago with no signal to the monitor while playing games, and all fans still spinning. He said in his case, it was the CPU that was faulty.

I'm inclined to believe that might be the issue with my situation as well, but could a faulty CPU really lead to crashes and no video during games even if it runs through Prime95 easily for several hours?

 

[mr_anthrope]

So here's the update, guys.

It now appears that the hardware isn't to blame at all. Last night, I swept clean all display drivers and did a system restore, and now miraculously, all my games are running fine (at least I managed 30 minutes of Wolfenstein which was earlier freezing at max 2 minutes)

Here's the catch. Only ONE game is still giving me the monitor no signal issue, and that is *drumroll please* WATCH DOGS! Which was the last game I installed before the issues started.

So from what I can tell, I had a bad install of Watch Dogs which somehow corrupted my drivers and/or DirectX files, creating issues in all DirectX11 games. I realised that DirectX 9 games I tried (Dota 2, Dark Souls, Fifa 14) all ran with no issues at all

I'm currently downloading Watch Dogs rather than using the DVDs I got with my retail copy. Will keep you guys updated if that turns out to be the issue. I really hope it does. I've been up all night doing this nonsense!

 

[mr_anthrope]

WHEEEE! It is officially SOLVED! No issues with hardware. Definitely some major fault with the latest nVidia 337.88 drivers, because I started losing signal on idle as well. Either corruption caused by a bad Watch Dogs install, or just generally dirty drivers. I'm running 335.23 currently and Watch Dogs runs like a dream after the re-install. Everything is back to normal!

Wow, I never knew bad drivers could create such ridiculous issues.

Only bad thing to come out of all of this is that the constant freezing and restarting appears to have fried the transmitter for my Turtle Beach PX4 wireless headset. Sigh. Need to RMA that. But that'll certainly be less heartache than the 3 days I've spent struggling over these drivers.

Thanks for the help, folks!

 

[mr_anthrope]

Okay, false alarm guys.

Got back home last night and started gaming and the same issues are resurfacing. Completely lost now

Any more suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[mr_anthrope]

Just thought I'd update this with the solution.

SOLVED

Bought myself a new GPU and that appears to have solved the issues. Been gaming for a few hours now and everything's back to normal. Turns out it was a faulty GPU after all.

Thanks for the help, folks. Much appreciated