Black screen of death

EdG76

EdG76

EdG76

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Joined
29 Nov 2024
Posts
3
Location
Kent
Morning All,

New here so hi!

I'm desperate for some help as I'm pulling my hair out.

I keep getting black screen crashes.

This generally occurs when gaming and will require a forced restart.

Sound will continue, but both my monitors go black and the PC becomes totally unresponsive.

I've tried keyboard shortcuts such as the windows key + P and CTRL,ALT, DEL but this doesn't work.

I upgraded by PC earlier this year from an old build, ditching everything apart from the case and PSU.

My new build is:
ASUS TUF Gaming Z790-PRO Wifi Mboard
Intel i7-14700k CPU
ASUS TUF Gaming 4070Ti Super
Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 64Gb RAM (2 x 32GB)
2 x Samsung 1TB 980 Pro SSD
Corsair H170i Elite LCD XT Cpu Cooler
Be Quiet! BL109 Pure Wings Fans x 3

I retained a Be Quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Full Gaming Tower and a Corsair Dominator RM1000X PSU from my original build which was 7 years old.

At the time of upgrade I also purchased an Alienware AW2725DF monitor which is connected via Displayport to my GPU.

I also have a much older Samsung S27D590 LCD monitor that I use as as secondary monitor connected via HDMI.

I've tried upgrading all my drivers, including fresh installs of the graphics drivers, and eventually thought I had identified that it was my PSU that was the problem and was perhaps failing.

I'd read this could be a common cause of black screen and spoke to the local IT company who had built my computer earlier this year and they agreed it sounded likely.

In particular as I was getting some feedback from the main power switch on the back of the computer.

So yesterday I received a brand new 2024 Corsair RM1000X PSU that I quickly installed and got my PC back up and running.

I ran Unreal Engine Heaven Benchmark at Ultra to stress test and everything seemed fined.

Fired up my favourite game, Destiny 2, and had half an hour uninterrupted gameplay with no crashes. Hooray I thought - fixed!

I went back on later, and almost straight away had the moment I dreaded - the black screen crash!

I forced a reboot and the system was stable for a good couple of hours before I shut it off with no further crashes.

But I don't think my problem was the PSU.

Any ideas or tests I might do to try and determine what's causing this?

One thing that did occur to me is that in my particular case, the PSU sits in a cage that slots onto the base plate of the case.

It doesn't go out the back of the case itself and there's an internal cable that connects to another power input on the back of the case where you plug the kettle cable in. This also has its own external on/off switch, but you leave the on/off switch on the PSU on all the time.

Its this external switch that I get some feedback from when turning to the off position. Could this be the cause or am I clutching at straws.

Anyway - all help gratefully accepted!

Thanks!
 
The internal power cable is a possibility
Can probably test that though by sitting psu
Outside the case and
Plugging directly to the wall bypassing that cable

I would be more concerned about intel
13th and 14th gen degradation
Not sure if there's a specific test for that yet or not

Sorry if I missed it
Did you do a clean install of windows?
Could also be a software problem
 
EdG76 said:
One thing that did occur to me is that in my particular case, the PSU sits in a cage that slots onto the base plate of the case.

It doesn't go out the back of the case itself and there's an internal cable that connects to another power input on the back of the case where you plug the kettle cable in. This also has its own external on/off switch, but you leave the on/off switch on the PSU on all the time.

Its this external switch that I get some feedback from when turning to the off position. Could this be the cause or am I clutching at straws.
Click to expand...
It is possible there's a fault there, but hard to say really.

EdG76 said:
Any ideas or tests I might do to try and determine what's causing this?
Click to expand...
Is there anything in the event viewer from before the crash?

EdG76 said:
At the time of upgrade I also purchased an Alienware AW2725DF monitor which is connected via Displayport to my GPU.

I also have a much older Samsung S27D590 LCD monitor that I use as as secondary monitor connected via HDMI.
Click to expand...
Can you clarify, did your PC crash BEFORE these new items were purchased, or afterwards?

Have you tried using only the older Samsung monitor, with the Alienware disconnected?
Have you tried replacing the display cables with high quality certified replacements? This is especially important if the cables are not the originals supplied with the monitor.

EdG76 said:
ASUS TUF Gaming 4070Ti Super
Click to expand...
You're not using a riser, right?

EdG76 said:
2 x Samsung 1TB 980 Pro SSD
Click to expand...
Have you checked the SMART health of these drives and that their firmware version is unaffected by the firmware issues that hit many Samsung drives?

EdG76 said:
Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 64Gb RAM (2 x 32GB)
Click to expand...
What speed are these? Is XMP disabled or enabled?

Mcnumpty2323 said:
I would be more concerned about intel
13th and 14th gen degradation
Not sure if there's a specific test for that yet or not
Click to expand...
Tetras said:
There's a post here that mentions many of the common symptoms.

If you're having any of these issues while using the PC, it can suggest a degraded/failing 13th-14th gen CPU:
  • Random memory read/write errors in different software.
  • Repeated "status_access_violation" in any Chromium web browser.
  • UE5 games crashing and/or crashing when compiling shaders.
  • Many WHEA errors appearing in the event log (though these can happen due to other reasons, like overclocking and a bad BIOS).
  • Problems with game patchers and file compression, like corrupt files and drivers failing to install.
  • PCI-E bus related issues and general instability, especially with CPU connected devices.
  • Memory that has to be run significantly below XMP or with XMP off (though this can be normal behaviour, depends on the memory config).
  • A CPU and/or memory controller that has to be progressively underclocked to work stably.
Click to expand...

Full system lockup

Hey all, I am looking for some advice. I recently changed my RAM, and CPU upgraded from 4x 16GB DDR5 5200mts Corsair Dominators to Kingston Fury 5600mts 2x 32GB (as I could not get XMP to work on the others). These were running fine with my 13700k the other night playing PUBG for quite a few...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
after all the new bits you have added, you should reset bios and any GPU overclocking software you have.
you can have a system solid for years then chance a 1080p monitor for an 1440p and your OC's are suddenly not stable, because your working the system harder

how ever in my personal history full lock up with audio still playing is generally ram
 
I tend to agree, anything weird or seemingly inexplicable tends to be RAM. I'd buy a couple of new dims from the river to test. Easy to return if it's not the problem.
 
Anything weird or inexplicable
My first thought is software before hardware
Can you reproduce it
On a second drive with just basic windows installed
Or on Linux or a bootable live usb

Why buy new ram
Run memtest on the ram first

test things that are free first
a lot of times its a software issue

Though as mentioned
There's also intel degradation issue
 
Thanks all for the responses.

Just looked at event viewer and its all over the place.

Recently a lot of nVidia issues with local container failures, but that all seems to be in the last few days, and not consistent with BSOD crashes I've been experiencing for several weeks.

I've plugged in new cables to run the monitors, including a manufacturer supplied display port cable for the Alienware monitor and it seems to be working fine.

I did wonder about RAM as one of the DIMMS doesn't seem to enable its RGB function until iCUE software from Corsair enables.

I have to admit I'm a novice and am a bit lost with what to try and test.
 
My PC was fine initially after upgrade and was rock solid, but about a month ago I noticed the crashes starting.

I haven't done a clean install of windows

The mobo was brand new with the upgrade so I'm not sure about resetting BIOS

I'll try running MEMTEST - is there something I should look out for?
 
EdG76 said:
My PC was fine initially after upgrade and was rock solid, but about a month ago I noticed the crashes starting.

I haven't done a clean install of windows

The mobo was brand new with the upgrade so I'm not sure about resetting BIOS

I'll try running MEMTEST - is there something I should look out for?
Click to expand...
Memtest is straight forward
It will either say passed
Or say errors

A clean install of windows probably advisable
Or clean install on a second drive
If you have a spare drive
Then you can use the second drive to double check
If issues are replicated
I just install the essentials on the second windows
Too many different softwares probably cause some issues

If clean install is the same
And memtest is OK
You may have to consider the intel degradation problem
 
I'd start with memtest. No point reinstalling Windows if your ram is bad. If it passes memtest, reinstall Windows.

The Nvidia errors could be a red herring. They can also be caused by bad memory or a dodgy 14700k.
 
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