PC randomly stops giving an image on screen.

[xblaauw]

Hey, i built a pc for my step brother a while ago using second hand parts, a few of you really helped me check it for errors a shorter while back in this thread:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3045383/lga-775-system-gtx-780-image-screen.html

But over the past couple months he has described a problem to me where his screen goes black but the pc keeps running, however, since i was on skype with him while it happened, i can assure you that skype will keep running for at least 1 more minute after the screen goes dark before also stopping.

in the previous post we dealt with a watchdog error between the ssd and the system (windows 10 flaw apparently) so that can't be it. It is also not the temperature since it failed twice in the past hour both times the temperatures where below 40 on both the cpu and gpu and hard disks.

The oddest thing is that both he and i have not been able to find a trigger, like i said, he booted it up a little over an hour ago and skyped me only to fail twice. He told me last week there where a few nights where he could happily play games for hours with multiple programs running in the background like skype.

To me this looks like a software error, but to be honest i have no idea, the one time i decided to go to his house and have a look at it i couldn't get the screen to go black and the pc to do what i just described.

his system:
Striker 2 NSE motherboard by ASUS
q9650 by intel
8gb of ddr3 ram
random 250gb ssd
random 500gb hdd
gtx 780 by nvidia gpu
corsair cx 500m psu

Any help will be appreciated,
Xander

 

[Thineswar]

what we could at this point is basically start over from scratch.
first, i recommend booting into safe mode and leave it running.
then, try safe mode with networking, and leave it running
try to see if the pc turns off at any point.
if it doesn't, it means that there's something installed on your computer like a virus or a specific program or driver that wasn't installed properly.
if the pc still shuts down however, then you'd need to do a clean install of windows.

 

[sid_90]

I had the same issue, except I use to get a blue-black screen. I checked every piece of Hardware before and finally changing my PSU. And all those awkward screens in the middle of playing games or doing work has stopped ever since. The temp is also below 52 degrees C while playing games in Ultra settings, with no extra FANs or Coolers.


Local tech from the same company of PSU confirmed that it was faulty. Although it was running & it use to influx a lot of extra power into my Mobo, which caused overheating of my GPU.

Note: Earlier I thought it was my GPU, so I changed my GPU twice, HDD once, Mobo once, RAMs twice... but still the problem kept on happening for another 5 months! As told by a local tech who came to my house and recommended these changes on each separate occasions. But all came down to one damn Corsair 650x PSU!

Now I am not sure it is the same prob with yours.. but thought might just share it with you all.

 

[xblaauw]

thanks for the fast response guys, i appreciate it! Its funny because as Thineswar knows (i linked here on that thread), my initial psu was the reason my pc wouldn't start in the first place, so it would be a bummer if this second part has malfunctioned aswell.

I must agree it fits the symptoms of a bad psu, but i will first follow through thineswar's advice to rule out any of that being the prob before i spend more money

thanks guys, i'll report back here once i know more!

 

[xblaauw]

I'm at my brother's right now testing things on his pc trying to get it to black screen, after about 2 hours of trying i got it to blackscreen during a reinstall of the driver 355.82 by nvidia for windows 10. I used DDU and checked the clean install box in nvidia's driver install window, i unchecked everything else. I found similar posts of people experiencing black screens with their nvidia cards in windows 10, some pc's shut down, others crash like my brother's. I found someone telling people to switch their display to the on mobo port and getting an image that way. But i'm 99% sure it has something to do with the nvidia card in the system, or, most likely, their driver + windows 10.

The second time i tried installing that driver it worked, the pc boots, everything seems as functional as it was when i arrived (which is to say 100% functional untill it randomly crashes, if the problem persists that is...).

I couldn't get it to crash in safe mode with or without networking.

I found one person blaming their realtek audio drivers, he doesn't have those though.

The most frustrating part of the process is that i can't trigger the black screen on command, so i end up sitting around waiting for it to crash on me. Since my brother lives pretty far away, this is a hassle

Does any of you know of a program that can give me a more elaborate error report? Because i dont get any errors (at least not with the screen still functioning)

i'm considering taking the 780, selling it, and buying an amd card, but that would also provbe to be a hassle XD

 

[Thineswar]

So, this might be a software issue after all.
Try doing a clean install of windows and see how it goes.
You might want to install Windows 7, though

However, if you think that the gpu might be the issue,
1. Try booting with a different gpu (i'd surprised if you hadn't tried this yet)
2. Try following this

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyDxrTHDjXQ"][/video]