Black screen crash with buzzing audio

[SquareUnit]

Hello world,

Since approximately 8 months, my computer started to black screen crash while the audio kept playing for a couple of seconds (0 sec to 3-4 sec long) before starting to buzz. I cannot say if it was a driver update, a power outage, windows updates or something else that started it. Crashing happened sparsely at first, so I didn't pay to much attention to it. Eventually it started getting much more frequent. I think it might have started to happen after I played, for some time, a heavily modded Skyrim with intense shaders and extremely graphics. It would be weird since video games do not crash my computer (see below).

When it crashed, I have to manually restart the computer with the reset button and it does not produce any crash log.

Here is a list of what can cause a black screen crash with buzzing audio (if sound present):

Playing a video online, watching livestream or playing online games- extremely frequent crashes
Browsing an image board or a "boruu" type image website (lots of image simultaneously on screen) - Very frequent crashes
Playing a video on my computer - Average crashes
Opening an app like Blizzard game launcher or Itune - Some Crashes
Restarting the computer with restart button after it crashed - Rare crashes
Using the computer desktop (shuffling folders for example) - Rare crashes

Playing videos games DO NOT crash the computer, aside from a single game called Dwarf Fortress which is famous for doing a tremendous amounts of calculations and has no graphics at all (you play with an ASCII characters interface).

Naturally, I reinstalled my GPU drivers. I did not change anything so I backpedaled from windoes 10 to windows 8, still crashed. I did a backup of all my important data and did a blank windows 8 install (from a bought CD), still crashed.

Next logical step was trying to find the hardware at fault, so I sent my computer to a shop. In 7 days, they were unable to make my computer produce a single crash. They checked all my hardware and software, nothing broken they said, aside from flash player software who was in 32x instead of 64x.

I brought the computer back home, crashed again 5 minute later. The only thing they did not test were my display, mouse and keyboard, wireless adapter and power cord. I tried switching everything one by one, still crashed. Only the power cord remain untested as I do not have a spare one to try it out.

It can crash after an hour or in 30 seconds after being booted up. I checked the motherboard, CPU and GPU temps using Open Hardware Monitor while trying to cause a crash and nothing peeks over 45 oC, ever.

I did clean my pc of any dust and it seemed to reduce the crashes frequency for some time, but it went back to crashing all the time very fast.

One last thing, it seem to mess up with my wireless adapter, making it disconnect completely 2/3 of the time the computer crashes, so I have to manually reconnect it to the rooter.

Here is the 1 year and 6 months old rig ______________________________________________

-Intel Core i5 i5-4460 Quad-core (4 Core) 3.20 GHz Processor - Socket H3 LGA-1150Retail Pack 1 MB - 6 MB Cache - 5 GT/s DMI - Yes - 3.40 GHz Overclocking Speed - 22 nm - Intel HD 4600 Graphics - 84 W (BX80646I54460)

-ASRock H97 Pro4 ATX Motherboard - Socket LGA 1150 - Intel H97 Chipset - SATA 6Gb/s - 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 - USB 3.0 - HDMI - D-Sub - DVI-D - ELNA Audio Caps - Intel Gigabit LAN (H97 Pro4)

-Crucial M500 240GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal Solid State Drive CT240M500SSD1

-Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

-G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-8GBXL

-PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 290 DirectX 11.2 AXR9 290 4GBD5-PPDHE 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready ...

-EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G1 120-G1-0650-XR 80+ GOLD 650W Fully Modular Includes FREE Power On Self Tester Power ...

-Asus DRW-24B1ST Internal 24X DVD Burner - 5.25" - 1.5MB Cache - SATA - OEM - Black (DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS)

-NZXT Source 210 Elite White Steel with painted interior ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ Black Front Trim

I have no idea what to do or check. At this point I'm willing to go to another shop to see if they can figure out anything they other shop could not. It's getting to a point where internet is barely usable anymore.

If this thread is is the wrong section, feel free to move it as I have not found one for this problem and similar one were written in this forum section.

Any help will be immensely appreciated

 

[SquareUnit]

I just cleaned my PSU and redid all my cables related to the PSU. I found a cable slightly out of place and redid the connection.
After 30 minutes of youtube video, it crashed again.

And so the problem remain unknown and persist...

 

[raven_g20]

Hey buddy,

Sorry about your problems but I am facing a similar, if not identical, problem as you. Mine started after installing latest windows update (deemed "Creator", got laugh at the irony of the name) and I tried a bunch of things. Right now I've disabled the dvr or game whatsitcalled from Xbox app on Windows 10. It seems to be working (hope I didn't jinx it) so maybe you can try it as well. In any case check my topic as well:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3390827/random-freezes-lound-buzzing-sounds.html

Good luck!

 

[SquareUnit]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3390827/random-freezes-lound-buzzing-sounds.html

Good luck!

It's exactly the same symptoms as you, but not the same source I guess since I don't have the creator update installed. I removed all my startup programs, still crashes. Currently monitoring my CPU, memory, disk and Wi-Fi performances with the task manager. I'm trying to see if anything goes haywire just before a crash happens.

 

[raven_g20]

Even if you don't have the creator upgrade still you have the game Game DVR thingy. Check the Xbox app or go to settings and disable it. Other than that maybe it's your motherboard. But since you say you gave it to experts to test out all your hardware I honestly can't say what it is. Only thing that comes to mind is driver conflict. I read somewhere that it can be a conflict due to multiple drivers installed for your audio device. Maybe try disabling them one by one and see if that does anything.

 

[SquareUnit]

Removed Xbox app using powershell and this command: Get-AppxPackage xbox | Remove-AppxPackage

I went into my device manager, display adapter, my GPU, property, drivers and finally into drivers details. From that point on I would not know what to do to find conflicting material in that really long list of data.

I will search on my side in the meantime, but can anyone help me a bit to know how to figure out of any drivers are actually conflicting? I will disable my GPU, reboot and see if I can get my computer to crash using only the MoBo integrated GPU unit.

 

[SkillR]

Try that solution
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3392018/random-crashes-black-screen-repeated-audio.html#19582152

 

[SquareUnit]

I looked into that thread but could not find a relevant solution for me. But, I did find a very useful program named WhoCrashed and managed to enable and successfully create a full crash dump.

Unfortunately, when I got the black screen crash again, IT DID NOT generate a crash dump. I have no idea why but the crashes I'm experiencing do not generate anything even with a properly set dump file that's been tested and is positively working.

I tested disabling my GPU make the crashes stop so far, further test are needed to confirm it properly.

 

[SquareUnit]

I can confirm my computer stop crashing if I disable my GPU and only use the MoBo integrated GPU. Also, it is not possible to generate a debug file for this specific black screen crash I'm having.

I might bring my GPU to a repair store for another quick evaluation. I'm unsure on how to proceed from now.

 

[SquareUnit]

NEW DEVELOPMENT YAY



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crash Dump Analysis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.

You have performed a crash dump test. The test succeeded and the crash dump file was properly written out.

On Mon 5/1/2017 4:14:37 PM your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: Unknown (0xFFFFD908CC8A8800)
Bugcheck code: 0xEA (0xFFFFD908CC8A8800, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
Bug check description: This indicates that a thread in a device driver is endlessly spinning.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error.
Google query: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER

I will proceed in trying to install older drivers but it's quite a procedure from what I've seen. Good new is that I've finally produced a crashlog and might have foond the root of my problem.

 

[SquareUnit]

Solution found. Everything pointed to the GPU drivers. Here is how I did it:

1) Went into services (search windows task bar) and disabeled Windows Updater from updating Windows.

2) Removed all AMD drivers from c:/windows/system32/Driverstore that windows use to update your drivers when you boot up (without any of your consent). We disabeled windows updater so it would not reinstall the AMD drivers into the Driverstore folder. Driverstore is highly protected, you might need a third party software to delete them.

3) Use AMD uninstaller for a clean sweep.

4) Installed Crimsonlive version from June 2016. Disable Crimsonlive drivers auto-update and Crimsonlive app auto-update.

5) Enjoy a crashless computer! It has not crashed yet and if it does I will comeback to update this thread.

 

[SquareUnit]

Welp, still crashing, no ideas anymore. I'll be tossing this GPU off a bridge in one week if no one can help me through this anymore