Screen Goes Black When Gaming

I recently bought a used ati radeon 4850 and a 430 watt antec PSU. Everything was fine until a week later, when my screen would go black when playing games. I could hear the audio for 3 seconds, then it would start repeating and then there would be no audio. The computer is still on, but everything just shut down and i'm forced to restart. So now whenever I go to play a game like WoW, I get the black screen after just 5 minutes.

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sounds like the CPU is overheating

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Reply to carickw

carickw wrote :

sounds like the CPU is overheating

It's because of the Graphics card right? What should I do?

Reply to l1nkown

actually im not sure. I had an overclock on my CPU and it would lock up in games, but the screen would stay at the same frame and the audio would continue to repeat. I lowered my OC and it went away. Check your case for dust. How many intake and outtake fans does your case have? Does your 4850 have a case to blow the hot air out the back through a second expansion slot?

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Reply to carickw

carickw wrote :

actually im not sure. I had an overclock on my CPU and it would lock up in games, but the screen would stay at the same frame and the audio would continue to repeat. I lowered my OC and it went away. Check your case for dust. How many intake and outtake fans does your case have? Does your 4850 have a case to blow the hot air out the back through a second expansion slot?

Well that's not the same case, my screen goes black and everything stops. I don't think I have any fans and my 4850 is a single slot.

Reply to l1nkown

Underclock your CPU and see if it stops. you should get case cans, and probably a PCI slot fan to place next to your GPU to push hot air out. The fact that you don't have any fans makes me think it is probably an overheat issue, what GPU did you have before? Is this an OEM machine, if so, what brand/model.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to carickw

carickw wrote :

Underclock your CPU and see if it stops. you should get case cans, and probably a PCI slot fan to place next to your GPU to push hot air out. The fact that you don't have any fans makes me think it is probably an overheat issue, what GPU did you have before? Is this an OEM machine, if so, what brand/model.

I don't think my motherboard that came with my Dell e521 allows me to underclock or overclock. I used to use a nvidia 8600 gt

Reply to l1nkown

yeah, thats probably true. You probably can't really add case fans either. If I was you, I would invest in a expansion slot fan and place it next to you gpu. They are < $10: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835119065

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to carickw

carickw wrote :

yeah, thats probably true. You probably can't really add case fans either. If I was you, I would invest in a expansion slot fan and place it next to you gpu. They are < $10: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835119065

So you think it's my Graphics card overheating?

Reply to l1nkown

no, i think it is your CPU overheating because your GPU is putting too much hot air inside your case and the CPU cannot handle it. GPUs can run hotter than CPUs (i hear).

Message edited by carickw on 08-18-2009 at 06:04:38 PM

Reply to carickw

I think he's wrong. I was having a simlar issue. Fan was bad on my 4830. GPU was overheating. When a CPU overheats, it normally shuts the PC down completely. The 4850 is not going to produce enough heat to cause the CPU to overheat.

Message edited by AMDThunder on 08-18-2009 at 07:45:03 PM

Reply to AMDThunder

But why would the sound stop working if it was the video card?

Message edited by carickw on 08-18-2009 at 07:54:32 PM

Reply to carickw

get software system monitors and see what the temperature is when you start up your game.

Reply to carickw

One option would be to buy a cheap [Rosewill] case and move all your components into it. This will allow you to add fans. A 4850 can produce a lot of heat. If it stays in your case, the CPU fan may be unable to do its job.

Reply to jtt283

Download Realtemp and monitor your CPU temps. I doubt that is the issue. It sounds to me that your GPU is overheating. Download Rivatuner and force fan speed to 100%. Also, it wouldn't hurt to lower clock and mem speeds. This should help confirm the problem is GPU related or dismiss it.

Question, what’s total 12v rail amps?

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by Roush2fast on 08-18-2009 at 09:47:01 PM

Reply to Roush2fast

Roush2fast wrote :

Download Realtemp and monitor your CPU temps. I doubt that is the issue. It sounds to me that your GPU is overheating. Download Rivatuner and force fan speed to 100%. Also, it wouldn't hurt to lower clock and mem speeds. This should help confirm the problem is GPU related or dismiss it.

Question, what’s total 12v rail amps?

I don't remember, but when I made a thread asking if my PSU was enough, everyone agreed that it was.
I've been playing with my case open and the Air conditioner running and it hasn't had a problem yet. I tried Realtemp and it says my processor is not supported. It is an AMD Athlon dual processor 4600+ 2.4ghz.

Reply to l1nkown

does cpuz show temps?

Reply to carickw

Well then, I believe the solution I suggested will work long-term for you, as it does seem to be a matter of heat. A cheap Rosewill case with another 120mm fan added to the front (most just have one 120mm in the rear) will cost you about $40 if you find one with free shipping.

Reply to jtt283

As you bought a used card, I would suggest you take the heatsink off and re-seat with some new thermal paste. It does sound like your gfx is overheating and I reckon doing this will bring your temps down significantly.
For example, I recently bought my dad a used Asus HD3870, plonked it in and tried a few games, played Grid with all the eye candy turned on and it played for a couple of minutes then locked up the whole machine. Re-booted, and monitored the temps doing the same thing and they went up to ~95c before I stopped it and pulled the card out. I took the heatsink off and the old thermal paste just flaked off. The paste hardens over time and I suspect where it had been in transit the vibrations had cracked it off the surface of the GPU allowing it to get much hotter than normal.
I replaced the thermal paste and after it had been run in for a bit the same card only hits 78c after 10 mins of Furmark.

Reply to MMclachlan

Had the same problem u described ,all i had to do was download rivatuner and change the GPU fans manually when u play games just push them to 50% ,it will be loud but at least it fixes the problem

Reply to lorik

Why would the sound stop if the video card shutdown? Aren't they (usually) completely different entities? Although this is Windows where everything is tied together, and the GUI is built into the kernel.

Reply to carickw

Everything is tied together under Windows, but its also tied together on the mobo. Who knows how the overheating may affect other components. Maybe its not heat related and its just a bad vid card. That's why it so hard sometimes to troubleshoot a hardware issue. A bad component could be affecting another unrelated component.

Reply to AMDThunder

Any update? I want to see how wrong I was.

Reply to carickw

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