Computer freezes/crashes randomly and shows stripes

[donnyy]

Hey everyone,

Since yesterday, my computer started freezing randomly in games or even when im just idle. The screen would take any color (pink/yellow/black) and it would have vertical lines through it. I haven't really touched anything and I have no idea if these are signs for a bigger problem if I don't do anything about it. The sounds kept going, I could continue talking in skype too, but I couldnt alt+tab or ctrl+alt+del. After 5 mins I decide to hold the power button to shut it down because there is no other way to do so. It happened 3 times yesterday spread over 6 hours. The last time it freezed my whole computer crashed so I'm not sure if it will get worse if I don't do anything. If anyone knows what this could be or had this problem before I'd be glad to hear from them, I appreciate all the help I'll get.

EDIT: Found a screenshot I made yesterday while having this problem, im back on my computer but it might happen again in a few hours. Screenshot: https://i.gyazo.com/5547aa0acc31a67ce2491d7315a83b2e.png

Thanks in advance!

Donnyy

 

[mitchell65]

Just in case, before you do anything else, I wouldstrongly recommend that you backup all your data and email files to an external source, preferably an external hard drive.
EDIT: Did you ever run the software recommended to you on this Forum way back in December 2015?

 

[donnyy]

I didn't run the software that was recommended, everything was working fine after I switched the harddrives with older ones untill now (I still had another harddrive laying in the house), so it felt like it would only be extra work.

 

[donnyy]

My computer died completely after this last crash.
Screenshot by Lightshot first try at starting up after this crash.
Screenshot by Lightshot Restarted it and I cant even do anything at this point.

 

[mitchell65]

If you are happy to work inside your Tower then remove and reseat your graphics card. Worth a try! If no joy can you try another monitor? Did you manage to save your data files?

 

[donnyy]

I did manage to save my files, thanks for that! Alright it seemed to work fine for a bit after I reinstalled windows, but after I started up a game and played for 5 mins it gave me the same screen again. This time I could hear skype again and the others heard me too, but the game itself crashed and I had no other option as to push the button again. I reseated and cleaned my graphics card and will update as soon as my computer will crash again. I wont run games or anything and just leave it idle for now to see how it goes.

 

[donnyy]

Interesting, I left my computer for a 45 minutes on idle and my screen went black (Just as in turning the display off). I just moved my mouse and my screen came back. But the weird thing is that I just checked this out and it should turn my display off after 3 hours of idling, because this is in my settings. Could it be that this is somehow connected to the problems I am having? (Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings, here it says turn off display after 3 hours and go to sleep after 4.)

EDIT: Computer sometimes goes to a black screen really quick and then goes back to normal (flickers). This time it went to a black screen after 15 minutes, just as before I could just move the mouse and I got my screen back.

 

[ClassyBear]

sounds like hardware, like said above try re-seating the GPU, maybe try using the onboard graphics and see if you still have the same problem.

 

[donnyy]

Ended up not working anymore and took it to a doctor. The guy told me that my gpu died and that he has to replace it with a new one, I guess I was unlucky once again. I didn't have any good recommendations at the time so he was going to find a good one and replace it for me with a maximum budget of 300 euros. Thanks for trying to help though!