So first off my build is 3-4 years old and black screening has been a recurring problem for years with no fixes. My parts are:
CPU: i5 4690 3.5GHz
Mobo: MSI-H97 3 Gaming
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
GPU: MSI - R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR
PSU: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
When it happens:
-Only in games, it has never black screened on desktop/idle/web browsing
-Civ 6 with youtube playing in the background, Doom and Witcher 3 has never black screened at 90-95 degrees GPU
-Overwatch has only blackscreened in the menus with fans running high when tabbed out to reddit and viewing a gif/video
-Other games almost at random with GPU fans around 2700-2800RPM(CPUid shows it hit a max of 2950-ish but I've never seen it at that number live. More like mid 2800s) and can black screen anywhere between 85-95 degrees.
- I believe it has also done it at cooler temperatures, some areas of games just sets it off which reducing graphics can sometimes fix. Room temperature can be warm or cold, it doesn't seem to make a difference.
-It can sometimes be replicated in certain areas of certain games ,but at the moment none of those work so I cannot replicate it.
- A couple years back I had this issue in Diablo 3. Changing graphics from max to min in that game does very little and even going -10% underclock did not prevent it back then and caused me to stop playing the game.
System state when black screen:
- DVI no signal on the monitor
- All fans are still running (GPU,CPU, front and back case fans)
- Mouse and keyboard lights are on
- When I boot the system, I sometimes see the Windows logo with the loading circle, the screen goes black saying DVI no signal and then 1 second later comes back for me to log in if that could be related.
When I check event viewer after rebooting the system I see the following as errors:
- Event 6008 The previous system shutdown at 09:15:41 on 15/06/2018 was unexpected.
- Event 41 The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
- Not sure if its related ,but Event 7000 The SDWSCService service failed to start due to the following error:
A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file.
- Sometimes DCOM errors which I tried and failed to fix but they do not appear every time. There is also some disk errors but this started recently and after black screens but I also get "Volume E: (\Device\HarddiskVolume6) is healthy. No action is needed." so I guess its fine and unrelated.
I currently have my graphics settings in games turned down and GPU Frequency set at -15% in AMD Radeon settings and have not black screened yet. It's so random that I cannot really rule out it ever happening however.
I don't have any spare parts to test or a second capable machine to test parts in. I tried different monitor cables and ports,ran with integrated CPU graphics(can't be sure it worked), made sure everything is plugged in correctly and dust free. All drivers and windows are up to date.
Is this most likely a GPU issue? I'm a bit worried on spending a lot on a new GPU only to find out that it wasn't the problem given current prices and the fact I would probably need at least a 1060 6GB to be at least an upgrade rather than a side step.
CPU: i5 4690 3.5GHz
Mobo: MSI-H97 3 Gaming
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
GPU: MSI - R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR
PSU: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
When it happens:
-Only in games, it has never black screened on desktop/idle/web browsing
-Civ 6 with youtube playing in the background, Doom and Witcher 3 has never black screened at 90-95 degrees GPU
-Overwatch has only blackscreened in the menus with fans running high when tabbed out to reddit and viewing a gif/video
-Other games almost at random with GPU fans around 2700-2800RPM(CPUid shows it hit a max of 2950-ish but I've never seen it at that number live. More like mid 2800s) and can black screen anywhere between 85-95 degrees.
- I believe it has also done it at cooler temperatures, some areas of games just sets it off which reducing graphics can sometimes fix. Room temperature can be warm or cold, it doesn't seem to make a difference.
-It can sometimes be replicated in certain areas of certain games ,but at the moment none of those work so I cannot replicate it.
- A couple years back I had this issue in Diablo 3. Changing graphics from max to min in that game does very little and even going -10% underclock did not prevent it back then and caused me to stop playing the game.
System state when black screen:
- DVI no signal on the monitor
- All fans are still running (GPU,CPU, front and back case fans)
- Mouse and keyboard lights are on
- When I boot the system, I sometimes see the Windows logo with the loading circle, the screen goes black saying DVI no signal and then 1 second later comes back for me to log in if that could be related.
When I check event viewer after rebooting the system I see the following as errors:
- Event 6008 The previous system shutdown at 09:15:41 on 15/06/2018 was unexpected.
- Event 41 The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
- Not sure if its related ,but Event 7000 The SDWSCService service failed to start due to the following error:
A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file.
- Sometimes DCOM errors which I tried and failed to fix but they do not appear every time. There is also some disk errors but this started recently and after black screens but I also get "Volume E: (\Device\HarddiskVolume6) is healthy. No action is needed." so I guess its fine and unrelated.
I currently have my graphics settings in games turned down and GPU Frequency set at -15% in AMD Radeon settings and have not black screened yet. It's so random that I cannot really rule out it ever happening however.
I don't have any spare parts to test or a second capable machine to test parts in. I tried different monitor cables and ports,ran with integrated CPU graphics(can't be sure it worked), made sure everything is plugged in correctly and dust free. All drivers and windows are up to date.
Is this most likely a GPU issue? I'm a bit worried on spending a lot on a new GPU only to find out that it wasn't the problem given current prices and the fact I would probably need at least a 1060 6GB to be at least an upgrade rather than a side step.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram