Black screen after playing Video Games

[Lolwutman]

As the title says, I have this problem where, when I play a video game (mostly any video game) for some time, (It might be to a short 5 minute to a long 2 hour) my computer freezes and I get a black screen. When I push restart, the black screen is still there, so I have to push on "Shut down", I think this is called a hard reset.

I've been searching for help about this issue but it is completely futile. I've tried this thread in this same forum; http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-hel...-black-screens-freezing-nvidia-gtx-460-a.html

I'll have to say the story about this; I've never had this problem before until I got this new (now kind of old, 1 year old) computer. The old computer had an old motherboard that I don't even know which it was, but I'm sure it was ASUS' too. It also had an Intel Q8800. The rest were the same as today, such as the Nvidia GTX 285. Also, I have a different Power Box, the old one had 650w and this one has 800w, or 750w, not sure, if I need to be sure just tell.

The first time I experienced this problem was on a video game. Yes, this only happens on video games. I can't recall which video game it was first, probably "Heroes of Might & Magic V" or "The Elder Scrolls Oblivion".

Since then, I thought it was my videocard's problem, mostly the driver. I tried using different drivers, doing clean(er) installs and so on, then I thought I fixed it but I realized I didn't.

Right now, this problem is kind of "low" but it happens on my favourite games. It happens on Warcraft III and its expansion The Frozen Throne as well as Age of Mythology. For those that know it, and to be A LOT more specific, WC3 got the screen first when I saw the cinematic for Arthas talking about how he didn't visit that Elven city for a long time since he was a boy. Afterwards, doing something with Nvidia config, I somehow fixed the black screen problem but I know I didn't.

For the Frozen Throne, while playing Rexxar's campaign, I get the black screen at very random intervals.

For Age of Mythology, it crashed at that part where Ajax gets attacked by Trojan cavalry, right when I saved him and started building the base. Then it kept getting black screens out of nowhere. I had "Hardware Sound Acceleration" on, I disabled it, but I'm not too sure if that fixed it or not. Actually, it didn't at all.

Now, I have a theory that perhaps all these black screens are because of my faulty sound card, but I don't think I have a sound card, probably just the Motherboard one. It is Realtek's. As I said before, on that other thread, I tried removing Realtek too but no results at all.

On another note, I also have that "Nvidia Driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" problem/crash, luckily this problem has stopped. (By the way, I'd rather have this problem than the Black Screen one, I'm sure you'd know why if you ever suffered both. Not saying that I wish I had both problems.)

So, here I am, struggling to fix this problem already. I'll do anything to fix it, but I am also hoping I won't get any MORE problems.

If more information is needed, I will provide it.

Are there any more ideas for this?

P.S. I put this thread on "General discussion" because I am unsure which problem it is, either driver's, graphics card, hardware, sound card, device and so on.

 

[rvcjew]

i would check the the temperatures of the GPU with msi afterburner and see what it idles at and see what it loads at when gaming your card might over heating or it might just be failing. also you might want to reseat your RAM and GPU and in your bios disable onboard audio to see if it fixes your issue. Check your even logs in windows and see if any odd errors come up. Finally use speccy > Speccy - Download and publish your report by going to file/publish snapshot like below then link us to your snapshot so we can see if anything looks odd.

 

[Lolwutman]

Questions;

By reseating, you mean putting them on another place?
If I disable onboard audio, will all my audio stop?
Also, where are my "even logs"?

I'll try to disable the audio onboard.

Here is my Speccy: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/HQKvy7X6ACUKrq5JPavYxER

By the way, I have to tell that, somehow the black screen stops when I underclock my GPU using MSI Afterburner, mostly setting the Core and Memory Clock equivalent to an Nvidia 8800GTX, that is 575 and 900 respectively. I have never overclocked my GTX285.

 

[rvcjew]

Reseat means to take out and put back as sometimes they get moved and then don't always connect right. Disabling your on board audio will make no audio but you can test whether it's causing the problem. Also idling at 47c for your gpu is fine. To check your event logs hit the windows key and just type event log it well come up. I'm at work and on my phone or else I'd have a pic for you.

 

[Lolwutman]

After testing out, the audio was not the problem at all.

 

[archer]

Hi Lolwutman, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Did you try to updated the drivers for your graphic card? If not, download the latest drivers for the card. Uninstall the old ones. Use DriverSweeper to clean out the bits of the old driver. Install the new drivers and reboot the PC. Also, run a memtest overnight to check for any errors on the memory.

Keep us posted.

 

[Lolwutman]

Thank you archer, nice to meet you.

Yes, I did update my graphics driver to the latest one, that is version 331. I was thinking this would be issues with the driver itself, but instead of getting a "Nvidia Driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered", I get a "Freeze with a random coloured screen", which makes me think it might not be because of the driver.

I could try reinstalling the driver using DriverSweeper.

 

[rvcjew]

try with only one stick of ram in your machine and if it does it again try the other stick. sounds like ram to me more than a driver issue. run a memtest 86 on each stick of ram four about 6 hours if you have the time you could do it together but if it fails then you wont know what stick it is.

 

[Lolwutman]

I'm starting to think this problem is actually related to the Graphics Card, CPU or Motherboard. Probably most into the GPU.

I heard that the "Coloured screen freeze" is because of overclocking, but I am VERY sure I have NEVER overclocked anything.

There's a game called "Thief - Deadly Shadows", Tweakguides says this game is very sensitive to Overclock, so, I'm thinking...Maybe something is overclocked? How can I know considering I have never overclocked?