Solved Screen goes blank during games suddenly but computer remains on

[RaviR]

Hey Guys,

For the past 2 nights I've been getting this weird problem while playing games for which has never happened before. My monitor would just go blank like if its not getting any display, but my computer would be on, i would be still hearing the game sounds even TeamSpeak my friends can hear me and I can talk to them, then I would have to force restart to get back display....What gives?!

This has NEVER happened before, all my games run smoothly without any problems. Fifa 15, HoN, BF4, WatchDogs...nothing. Just since last night it started happening.

Can any help in providing some troubleshooting? Any other information or data needed please let me know.


*praying its not my graphics card*



Regards

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok RaviR mate start by letting us know what the temps are for the machine. Use Speccy and post back results
Speccy - Download

However it does sound like either the GPU or monitor is on the blink

 

[Boozad]

Adding to John's recommendation of Speccy, download and install MSI Afterburner, run your games in windowed mode with Afterburner set to Minimize to Tray. You can keep an eye on your temperatures in real time as you're gaming. Let us know the results.

 

[RaviR]

Hey Guys,

Thank you for the response so far. Let me see if I got the correct screenshots for you all. This is while playing Fifa15 at windowed mode for about 5 minutes. Before and after.

Also i forgot to mention my GTX660 is in the x8 slot because it does not seem to work at the x16 slot. See these threads where i posted about this problem.

Here and Here

Any other information needed,please let me know.

Regards

 

[Boozad]

I'm not sure whether 85°C is high for a 660 to be honest, my 780 hits 80°C consistently when gaming but I know that's the norm. Does this only happen when gaming?

 

[RaviR]

Yes, I've never seen a high temperature during normal use. I've played many games on my rig, all at max settings that my system would allow. Its only recently, maybe after I installed and uninstalled Dead Rising 3 that this started happening.

I played Watch Dogs on almost max settings with no problem what so ever. No clue why this suddenly happening even on normal games.

 

[Boozad]

So it's happening on all games or just specific ones? Which drivers do you have installed?

:ar: Run Furmark to stress test your GPU. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html

   Note

Run Furmark for around 30 minutes.

   Warning

Your GPU temperatures will rise quickly while Furmark is running. Keep a keen eye on them, anything over 85°C and abort the test.

Let us know the results.

 

[RaviR]

It happened for HoN (Heroes of Newerth) and Fifa 15. Never happened before but I played for a while last night and didn't get any issues.

Going to run the test now, will post back in a while.

Current Nivdia driver is 340.52

*Update*

The program keeps crashing when I stop it when my GPU reaches 86C and I can't get a log or anything, what to do?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sorry late reply mate go with what Boozad has instructed - the tempos on Speccy are what I would have expected thought CPU is a tad high for idle.

There is a new NVidia driver out too that transformed my Ivy Bridge and new Samsung monitor
GeForce 344.11 WHQL Driver Delivers The Ultimate Gaming Experience In The Latest Blockbuster Titles | GeForce

 

[RaviR]

Sorry late reply mate go with what Boozad has instructed - the tempos on Speccy are what I would have expected thought CPU is a tad high for idle.

There is a new NVidia driver out too that transformed my Ivy Bridge and new Samsung monitor
GeForce 344.11 WHQL Driver Delivers The Ultimate Gaming Experience In The Latest Blockbuster Titles | GeForce

Just got the driver update from GeForce Experience. I tried running the FurMark but when i stop the test the application itself becomes unresponsive.

 

[RaviR]

Well I'm posting back again since I didn't get a response. The same thing started back happening again last night while I was playing Far Cry 4 and also in Battlefield 4. Screen just went blank and the computer restarted. This has not happened since the last time I had posted which was last September.

Should I create a new thread or can we just continue here?

I will try the Fumark test again because I already did a clean uninstall of the Nivida Drivers and reinstalled the latest one but the same thing keeps happening.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well my best suggestion and what I would do is to renew the thermal compound on the CPU and GPU and see if that makes any difference you might want to reseat and clean the GPU contacts and slot too to ensure good contact.

Now there are a couple of other things you can do too and that is check out the PSU for volts using this HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download run the program and close the right hand window > click on Sensors > scroll down that listing until you get to the section showing the volts - it will be the section with Vbatt in it post a shot of that.

You could also run memtest but it takes a long time and it MUST BE DONE for 8 passes minimum Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool you will need to make a bootable disk for this, and insert the disk and restart the machine many leave it overnight because it takes so long depending of course on the amount of RAM on board. But please make sure it runs for 8 passes minimum.

 

[RaviR]

Thank you for the reply. What I will do when I get home is take apart my whole system, clean and re-seat back everything, re-apply thermal paste and them put them back together. Boot and make my first try at the gaming.

If the same happens, then I will do the tests you suggested then post back. Also I will do a stress test on the gpu to see if I get any results that may help in diagnosing the problem.

How does that sound so far?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sounds like a plan to me Ravir

 

[RaviR]

Thank you for bearing with me. So I took apart my entire system, cleaned every part,fan,screw(lol) I could have found. Removed and reapplied thermal paste to my CPU and GPU. Put them back together and booted up. Took a screen shot from Speccy of the temperatures I was getting.

After about 3 minutes tho, i got this pop up warning about my Vcore. What does that mean? How should I proceed now, go on to the test's and game play?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok Ravir that looks like the CPU voltage is on the low side unless I ma very mistaken so follow this you can do the PSU stuff but I ma more interested in what you can see as per my pics.
Using HW Info
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic.
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
Open each + down into the component itself and then click on it - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that device. See pic for example.

 

[RaviR]

Ok so I ran the HW info and these are the results I got. I'm not sure what exactly they are saying, can you provide some clarity to the readings I am seeing?

Also i got another warning while doing this post. Is it my PSU failing? I haven't run any games yet to see if the computer would restart.

 

[Mellon Head]

It's my guess that you have some sort of faulty sensor mechanism somewhere that's giving you the error message. Your CPU is not going to run at all with a VCore of 0.006 Volts. It wouldn't even be able to post a message. Same with the GPU running at that voltage. You'd have no display.

As far as that message goes, do you have some monitoring software running in the system tray? If so, that might be returning the incorrect value causing the error message.

Just a guess on my part, but I've seen that error message before.

As far as your monitor blacking out when you play games, try increasing your fan speed on the GPU to about 60%. I had to do that to my Radeon 7770 because the fan wasn't running fast enough to keep it cool when I played games. I had the same problem and symptoms as you do. I just set my fan to manual and increased it to 60%. Poof. No more problem.

 

[RaviR]

Yes, I have the ASUS AI Suite II running that came with the motherboard. I am currently uninstalling and reinstalling it. In terms of the readings I got with the HW Info, are the good? Showing any problems?

After I have restarted I am going to run the FurMark and post back. And yes I will use EVGA Precision X set to Auto fan speed to ramp the card speeds up, hopefully it doesn't restart again

 

[RaviR]

OK, So I've re-installed the AI Suite and I did the stress test for 4 minutes. These are my results with NO restart.