help: while playing, screen turns black and sound stutters for a few seconds

anonagon · Jun 5, 2015

This issue happens most frequently when playing World of Warcraft and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. It makes these games nearly unplayable.

When this issue happens, my game will freeze briefly, both of my monitors will turn black, the sounds that had just been playing will stutter or play on repeat, and then after 4-5 seconds it will return. On occasion, this will crash the game completely when I play WoW, and sometimes when the screen comes back it will be shifted up a bit and there will be a black bar on the bottom of the screen.

I have been trying to fix this issue for a while and I need help. Its not my drivers as I have tried various different drivers and clean installs of drivers, and nothing has fixed the issue. Its not an overheating problem either, as I have used HWMonitor and seen that my comp wasn't overheating when the crash happened. I opened up my PC and didn't see any physical issues that could be causing this. Any help would be much appreciated.

Darkbreeze · Jun 6, 2015

What is the brand and model number of your power supply unit?

anonagon · Jun 6, 2015

Darkbreeze :

its this: https://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-cx750m

Darkbreeze · Jun 6, 2015

Well, that's not the best PSU you could have for a gaming card, but it's probably not the issue unless it's got some miles on it. I'd take a look in the bios at the system voltage readings. +3v, +5v and +12v are what you want to note the readings for. You can also check them using HWinfo. (NOT HWmonitor)

Have you tried a clean install of the drivers using the Display Driver Uninstaller application and the process outlined in the clean drivers section here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2492424/laymans-simple-guide-solving-graphics-card-issues.html

If not, that's what I'd do and just for the sake of saying you did it, I'd do it anyhow. I see a LOT of threads where people are sure they've done a clean installation, but they really haven't, and this works for them, just like here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2664323/gigabyte-970a-ud3p-rev-freezing-installing-graphcis-drivers.html#15969193

anonagon · Jun 6, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I did the clean installation the way you suggested and I am still encountering the issue.

For the voltage readings, hwinfo says +3.3V is 3.312V, +5V is 5.064V, and +12V is 12.038V. thats for all 4 readings, current, minimum, maximum, and average, except for +3.3V minimum which says 3.296V instead of 3.312

Darkbreeze · Jun 6, 2015

Well, voltages look fine then. Why don't you post HWinfo screenshots as per these instructions at the following link.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2583515/basic-troubleshooting-layman.html

anonagon · Jun 7, 2015

Darkbreeze :

Darkbreeze · Jun 7, 2015

Have you tried the GPU in another slot on the motherboard. I'd try that, see if it still exhibits the same behavior. If it does not, it's likely to be the motherboard, if it does, it could still be the motherboard but is more likely to be the card.

anonagon · Jun 11, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I moved the card to the second slot but the issue still stands.

If its any help, I have also noticed some lagging/sound stuttering when I'm in the menu of CSGO, particularly when I hit the play button. Additionally, when I log into League of Legends my entire computer freezes briefly. I'm not sure if these are related but I bet they are.

Darkbreeze · Jun 11, 2015

Are those the only games it does this in or is it all games?

anonagon · Jun 12, 2015

Darkbreeze :

The freezing is exclusive to league (and really has never bothered me since it never occurs in-game but only once upon logging in). The lagging/sound stuttering is something I've really only noticed in CSGO, but its minor enough that I could have very easily passed over it in other games. The main issue with the occasional black screens/stuttering has occurred in a couple of other games besides WoW and CSGO, but not to the severity it does in those two. I think it occurred when I played Darksiders, which I had bought today, though the black screens lasted a much shorter time in that game than they do in CSGO.

Darkbreeze · Jun 12, 2015

Make sure, manually, not with any utilities that check automatically, that you have the most recent bios version for your motherboard.

Is your card overclocked at all?

What are your full system specs?

anonagon · Jun 23, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I don't have the most recent BIOS, mine is about a year older than the most recent one. Should I try installing the newest version?

For my system specs, what do you need? Just the parts in my pc or what?

Darkbreeze · Jun 23, 2015

Yes, I would update to the most recent version before I did anything else.

Knowing the specific model numbers of the following hardware would be most helpful.

CPU
Motherboard
Graphics card
RAM
Power supply

anonagon · Jun 23, 2015

Darkbreeze :

updated the bios and it made no difference

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core Processor
GPU: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 760 (its PNY)
RAM is 2x 4GB ram, manufacturer is G.Skill and the part number is F3-12800CL9-4GBRL according to CPU-Z
the power supply is the one I linked in the third post or so. Do I need to open up my pc to see the specific model number of it?

Darkbreeze · Jun 23, 2015

No, I forgot you already posted the PSU model. What is the motherboard model?

anonagon · Jun 23, 2015

Darkbreeze :

ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0

Additionally, my friend told me to try in windowed mode to see if that changed anything. It didn't, but since it wasn't fullscreen I could see an error message that said "Display Driver Kernel [version number] Has stopped responding and recovered". hope this helps.

Darkbreeze · Jun 23, 2015

My guess is the card is bad. I have seen some users with similar issues, that couldn't be nailed down for certain to a specific hardware failure have success with a clean OS installation, but I'm doubting that's the case here. It might be worth doing to avoid having to deal with a GPU card replacement though. If the OS install is fairly recent, then it's probably just a card failure. PNY doesn't make the most reliable components out there anyhow.

anonagon · Jun 23, 2015

Darkbreeze :

So, you're saying I should do a clean install of my OS, then, if that doesn't work, replace the card?

Darkbreeze · Jun 23, 2015

I think so. Did you try doing the DDU with an older driver to see if it helped at all?

anonagon · Jun 23, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I'll try that again I guess

Darkbreeze · Jun 23, 2015

If you already did it, using a driver that's one or two versions back from the most recent, using the DDU first to clean things up, then there is no reason to do it again. I just wanted to check to see if you had done it already or not.

Before you condemn the hardware as a final measure, I'd take all of the steps listed at the following link, especially running Memtest86+, running SFC/Scannow and also if you haven't already, download Furmark, open HWinfo, run Furmark and put the system under full stress and take some further screenshots of the sensor data.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2583515/basic-troubleshooting-layman.html

anonagon · Jun 25, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I did a scannow and it said that it found corrupt files but was unable to fix them.

It says details are located in the file CBS.log in C:\Windows\logs\cbs\cbs.log, but when I try to open the file it says access is denied

Darkbreeze · Jun 25, 2015

I'd probably consider doing a clean OS installation. It can't hurt and could certainly help.

help: while playing, screen turns black and sound stutters for a few seconds

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