Random black screen

ste91 · 16 Sep 2016 at 12:26

This has happened a few times now, for no apparent reason. The first couple of times the screen went black and there was buzzing from the speakers, this time there was no buzzing, the system is still running or atleast the fans are, but the screen is blank.

i5-6500 non overclocked, XFX R9-390 with the latest drivers, overclocked a little bit with Afterburner, Gigabyte Gaming K3, Windows 7, temps are fine, the computer is only a few months old, and it seems to happen at random times, not necessarily when under stress because twice it's happened when web browsing.

I looked this up on google and some people seem to think it's GPU related? Or possibly PSU?

ste91 · 23 Sep 2016 at 19:01

This just happened again, black screen and buzzing sound, whilst playing AOE 2, so no stress on the CPU or GPU, as it's an old game and can run on almost any PC.

Anyone got any idea what the problem is or how to fix it?

arc@css · 23 Sep 2016 at 19:33

Have you had a message pop up when this has occurred? Tried running memtest?

danlightbulb · 23 Sep 2016 at 21:02

Please describe your ram type and configuration.

ste91 · 23 Sep 2016 at 21:06

1 stick of 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2600mhz

I get the usual message when restarting about not shutting down properly, and no I haven't ran memtest.

Bonjour · 23 Sep 2016 at 21:13

I have a similar problem with one of my XFX R9 390s. In some games the screen will go black for a few seconds then recover. The game continues running while the screen is black. I've found that downclocking the card to about 950Mhz (from 1000 default) seems to help. Have you tried removing the slight overclock to see if that helps?

arc@css · 23 Sep 2016 at 21:27

Bonjour said:
I've found that downclocking the card to about 950Mhz (from 1000 default) seems to help. Have you tried removing the slight overclock to see if that helps?

+1

ste91 · 24 Sep 2016 at 15:33

Downclocking seems like a step backwards, from what I've seen other people running on these cards it's well within it's limits, of course not all cards are the same but if that's the case then it may aswell go in the bin.

It just happened again, annoyingly half way through a game without saving. I can't pin point a certain time where it started happening, maybe a driver update or something.

gupsterg · 24 Sep 2016 at 15:43

To rule out corrupt driver I'd uninstall driver via control panel, run DDU and reinstall.

If still your getting intermittent blackscreen I'd add a little increase in GPU core voltage whilst remaining at stock clocks to see if it fixes issue.

Most OC guides for these cards will highlight blackscreen tends to be lack of GPU core voltage and/or too high RAM clock.

Recently a member on Hexus had blackscreen intermittently on a R9 390 Nitro, he fixed it via downclocking RAM, few days later his PSU went pop. Maybe worthwhile to check PSU output using a DMM.

Bonjour · 24 Sep 2016 at 15:48

ste91 said:
Downclocking seems like a step backwards, from what I've seen other people running on these cards it's well within it's limits, of course not all cards are the same but if that's the case then it may aswell go in the bin.

It just happened again, annoyingly half way through a game without saving. I can't pin point a certain time where it started happening, maybe a driver update or something.

I absolutely agree, and am considering an RMA. The only thing stopping me is the reputation XFX have with RMAs.

I suspect there may be something up with the power distribution on the XFX 390s. The PCB layout is literally exactly the same as a 290/290X. I was only suggesting downclocking to ascertain if that was / is the issue.

ste91 · 18 Dec 2016 at 22:55

This has started happening quite regularly now, hadn't happened for a while, but now happens atleast once a day, when doing something simple like web browsing, so no stress on any part of the system. Screen goes blank and audio carries on for a few seconds before it stops and there's a loud continuous buzzing.

ste91 · 29 Dec 2016 at 03:10

Anyone got any ideas what this could be? Happening daily again now.

GPU? RAM?

smithy83 · 29 Dec 2016 at 05:49

If it's happening on a regular basis I would take the GPu out and run off the integrated graphics for a few days

I would have said the same about the ram but you only have 1 stick so try memtest

Other then that a clean installation of Windows could help as Windows can get messy over time with old software/drivers but that only if your running out of ideas