PC screens black out with PC still running in background

MrJamerJamer

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Apr 5, 2015
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Hello all I really need your help on this one,

So about 4 days ago it all started. I was sat just playing a few games and both my monitors blackout and act as if they are not plugged in, come up with the message "no signal", however the PC fans and led's are still running and I can somtimes hear the audio for a few seconds and then silence, they only way to go from there is to force power off.

Firstly I have no idea what is causing this to happen it's seems to be fairly random as it has proberly happened 8/10 times playing 'Rocket League' which isn't super CPU heavy or GPU heavy at all, so I stress tested my PC and everything ran fine temps. were normal as they should be and no crash, when playing Rocket league the temps. are as low as they should be so it is not an overheating problem. I can somtimes play for 5 hours and nothing happen and then other times play for 30 seconds and it crash, it has no correlation to what I am doing in game, i.e loading in, somtimes i'll be afk at the menu and it will crash.

I really need your help as I have no idea why this is happening, I have all the latest drivers, did a fresh install today. Also to note my computer has been feeling a little slugish over the past few days.

Specs:

CPU: Intel Core i3 @ 3.70GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 ASUS
MOBO: G1 Sniper B7
PSU: EVGA 500W
Mem: 8GB HyperX RAM
Drives: 1TB Seagate ST1000D + 931GB Western Digital WDC

Thanks in advance, James.
 
Solution
If no amount of software-side troubleshooting helps, it may be a sign that you're experiencing some kind of hardware failure, especially if there's no correlation to load. I'd look at the power supply first. It's usually the root cause of random inexplicable lock ups.

MrJamerJamer

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Apr 5, 2015
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After checking event viewer all critical errors I get are 41 kernel-power. There are 12 total in the past 4 days and 3 others from months back. Here are some examples of the details:

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>4</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000400000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-12-17T21:00:35.270021300Z" />
<EventRecordID>3369</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>DESKTOP-3NC7O1L</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">4</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">131264819813894223</Data>
<Data Name="BootAppStatus">0</Data>
<Data Name="Checkpoint">0</Data>
<Data Name="ConnectedStandbyInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="SystemSleepTransitionsToOn">1</Data>
<Data Name="CsEntryScenarioInstanceId">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Dunno if this helps at all.
 

Rom Hook

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Apr 16, 2015
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4,710
Try using the CPU integrated graphics and see if the problem repeats (just plug one of your monitors into the VGA on your motherboard). You may have to install Intel hd 4000 driver to be able to play Rocket Leage and turn graphics settings to minimum.
If the problem continues you may be sure it's not the gtx 970 that causes it. Might be the random power surges.
 

amtseung

Distinguished
The new(~ish) .33 drivers from Nvidia have been doing exactly this to some of my older OpenGL and DX9 titles (Planetside 2, BnS, Osu). Weary and frustrated after countless frequent driver crashes on the newest and latest, even after DDU'ing and reinstalling, I DDU'ed again and reinstalled .19, and as if by magic, all my problems disappeared.

I'm not the only one either. I think .33 has some serious stability problems.

Download Guru DDU and run it, wiping all display drivers from your system. Then download and install the latest drivers. If it's still black screening and crashing, run DDU again, then download and install the .19 version driver. If it's still doing it, I blame your overclock stability and it needs to be turned down from 11 to 10.
 

MrJamerJamer

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Apr 5, 2015
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UPDATE : So it's been a while and I'm still running into the problem. I found a short fix was to turn my settings all the way down to the lowest and I am able to play without crashing for as long as I like. However I started playing Overwatch again a few days ago and this was all fine, I could play at ultra with a stable 60 (Capped) for as long as I wanted no problem, but then just yesterday evening it began crashing again. It had been fine for 4 days before that and just suddenly it is occurring again, I can't even play for 30 seconds now... Gonna try turning down the settings to see how that helps. Again I'm only reaching 60 degrees on my GPU, so not sure if thats the issue.
 

MrJamerJamer

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Apr 5, 2015
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10,530


Sorry for the late reply, however I did what you said and used DDU and re-installed the latest drivers, no help. Then tried installing .19 and some other older drivers that worked for me in the past and again crashing... I have both my GPU boost clock and memory clock turned all the way to the lowest they can go on my GPUtweak. But thanks for trying to help anyway, not sure where to go from here.
 

amtseung

Distinguished
If no amount of software-side troubleshooting helps, it may be a sign that you're experiencing some kind of hardware failure, especially if there's no correlation to load. I'd look at the power supply first. It's usually the root cause of random inexplicable lock ups.
 
Solution