Youtube crashes pc to black screen sometimes and must restart

[jmodels]

Hello all, sorry if wrong forum.

I have a friend with a HD 6870 and he has a strange issue where sometimes when watching a YouTube video (I assume other web videos also) his pc will suddenly just display a black screen although his computer is still powered on (all lights on, fans still spinning). He must restart to fix the issue. While gaming and other activities there is never a problem. Note this roughly happens every 70-100 videos he watches but can be more frequent as it seems random. Cannot reproduce error very easily as it doesn’t happen very frequently.

Latest drivers are installed and again the card and computer work perfectly apart from this issue.

Any ideas of what it could be and any potential fix? Thanks.

 

[lookerup]

card defect?never heard of this problem

 

[DM186]

Could you post his spec's and his PSU brand and how many watts it is.

 

[jmodels]

Well while running games and other things there is no problem so is it likely its his PSU? I will get the specs now and post them soon. Also I am a assuming this is a GPU issue and not something else. I am right in saying that yes seeing what the error results in?

Thanks

 

[ricardois]

Yes indeed it looks like a GPU problem:

could be GPU working at unstable voltages, check if the PSU can really handle it;
could be driver version bug, try another driver (older ones).
could be overheat, check the gpu temps if they are too high see if the case is well ventilated and check if the gpu coolers are clean.
could be other problems but i bet on one of the above.

 

[jmodels]

PSU: Alpine 750W PSU <<<<< cheap but popular
CPU: Phenom II x2 555
GPU: PowerColor HD 6870 1GB
Motherboard: Asus M3A UCC

 

[DM186]

I would guess it is a heat problem do to the fact that it only faults in Youtube and nothing else. Are you guys monitoring your temps? let us know and thanks for posting your spec's

Do you get a bottleecking with dual core and the 6870? Just curious.

 

[jmodels]

You think its still a heat problem even though all games run fine, even latest games? I was pretty sure it wouldnt be.

Also don't monitor temps all the time but I did while round there and I remember all were fine.

 

[DM186]

Well lets monitor the temps just to see and do the process of elimination and just see so here is a links to the MSI Afterburner. The last one is a stress test to put your GPU under a test.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/images/Afterburner%20User%20Manual.pdf

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

http://www.ozone3d.net/msi_kombustor/

 

[ricardois]

out of context but Phenom II x2 555 probably is bottlenecking you performance in games it is a very weak cpu for match with that CPU, i'm not sure if you already know that but it is good looking for a new CPU, and if it requires also a new Mobo and or memory...