Black Screen, poof need help pretty badly :(

AAnimation

AAnimation

AAnimation

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Joined
9 Nov 2009
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60
Location
England
Right, so I've got my PC:

Core i7 920 3.6
Asus P6T Deluxe
12GB DDR3 G.Skill ram
4870x2
1x 80 gig intel x-25m ssd 2x 1tb f3's
and a liquid cooling kit
housed in a thermaltake spedo

The 4870x2 always ends up clogging up with dust and building up heat, so every year or so i clean it out and re-apply thermal paste, I've done this 3-4 weeks ago or so as it started heating up again. Today while gaming the screens went black, and switched to analog meaning it couldn't connect to the gfx anymore, I could still hear some game sound, but my VOIP client was dead, I couldn't talk or hear anyone. At the same time the GPU fan speed went to 100%. I proceeded to reboot thinking not much of it, hopped back ingame.. and about 2 minutes later it went poof again. I tried again, to the point where it would just go black within 10 seconds of seeing my desktop, I proceeded to safemode, which seemed to work fine, I tried driver sweeping, then when I tried re-install the drivers I got 'Driver Detection error' or something like that, with CCC and standalone driver. After that, I tried to boot without safemood, but before it even shows the windows logo it gives me a B3 blue screen code (it didn't before), so I just kept messing with it in safemode, but now even in safemode the screens are going black and there's nothing I can do.. I've checked the CPU temps (normal) and the GPU temps.. I don't see what's wrong, ANY HELP would be greatly greatly appreciated, I'm really stuck here.
 
any component failing can cause hanging, black screens and BSOD's. So yes, a graphics card can cause lots of issues. Also, a quick google for the B3 error code turned up results with people stating it was due to GPU, although I didnt read them in detail so there may be others.

How old is it though? Do you have another GPU to test with? Have you tried different drivers (as in a different download of the file and or/version)? Inspect the card where you replaced the paste etc as its likely something had gone wrong because of that :(
 
It's about 1 year old, I'll test it with a 8600, but the problem with switching drivers etc is that I can't, it literally won't let me install / wipe the drivers, and when I want to get into none safemode, it just blue screens. I'll test with 8600.
 
I thought you only had issues installing a driver, not wiping them. what happens when you try to wipe/uninstall them, and can you do it manually?
 
Back on my main PC now, I couldn't uninstall, and wiping it didn't do anything, ontop of that I couldn't reinstall either because of the error I was getting from CCC, I did some googling and found a solution, I went to device manager and right clicked 'Uninstall' and ticked the box to delete the drivers, then I re-booted after having cleaned out and reapplied thermalpaste again to my 4870x2, and volia, no blue screen.. the drivers were finally gone. From there, I installed the new drivers and so far it's running like it was before any of this happened. Thanks a lot for the input. I might not be out of the clear yet, but I hope so!

Btw, is artic silver 5 bad if you get it on your skin? I cleaned it off of course.. just wondering.
 
AAnimation said:
Btw, is artic silver 5 bad if you get it on your skin? I cleaned it off of course.. just wondering.
Click to expand...

Plenty of useful information on their website (www.arcticsilver.com), but they do say, under "Removal From Self" : Wash your hands with any liquid soap (Dawn, Lux, Palmolive, Etc.) rather than hand soap. (Do not use detergent for an automatic dishwasher.)

I have found that it seems to make my skin quite dry if I don't wash it off straight away.
 
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Montala.

As I expected, sadly this isn't the end to my troubles. 30 Minutes into gaming, and bam black screens unresponsive keyboard + mouse, and my voip client freezes. I can still here the game audio in the background though. What could be causing this.. Right now I've put in my 8600, and i'm going to see if it happens with this too... but so far this seems to be fine.
 
Sorry to hear about your ongoing problem.

I am probably not the best person on here to give advice on hardware matters I'm afraid, but I am sure that some of the others will soon be along with some ideas and suggesions.

Hope you manage to get it all sorted anyway!
 
sounds like you broke it then, either by tightening a screw too much or maybe catching something when cleaning the other TIM off, either that, or forgetting to put something on the VRMS (pads etc) but since youve done it twice I doubt it. RMA the card and hope they accept it, since youve probably voided your warranty on it.

For future, rather than deciding to clean your GPU all the time, just buy some DEMCIFLEX or similar fan filters and put them on your intakes, then your case wont get dusty.
 
You can try more things, easiest way would be to stick it in another machine, then it saves a load of time going through everything else, but if I didnt have another PC I probably wouldnt bother troubleshooting and would just RMA it, unless you know they wont accept it as youve damaged warranty sticker etc.

Another easy test would be to whack windows onto another partition and see if it fails there too.
 
The weird thing is that it doesn't do it at the same point, it does it ranomly.. the first time usually far in, like 20 mins then next shorter, and short.. this makes sense with me cleaning it out wrong?
 
if something is damaged, then it will be random, if its that you havent put a thermal pad or the TIM on correctly then it would be heat build up, which would fit that pattern perfectly.

I mean, im not saying I think your inept at doing it, just that accidentally something may have happened, mainly due to the fact that the issues occurred as soon as you did it.
 
I do think it would be me.. but just wanted to make sure, since it was 3-4 weeks after I had touched it that this started, thanks for the help
 
hmmm 3-4 weeks could still be the cause, although it makes it less likely. Is there anyway you can stick it in another machine, or at least try it on a fresh insall on windows?
 
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