Monitor goes black (No Signal) after gaming.

[Isrette]

New to these forums so unsure if this is the correct place for support, but it seemed like the most appropriate. If there is somewhere else I should post please let me know and i'll delete and repost in the correct section.

Been having issues with my pc/monitor crashing over the past week and am looking for some more knowledgeable opinions before I go spending money on a new unneeded GPU.

CPU:Intel Core i5 4590
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS10X Optima
Operating System: Windows 10
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97P-D3
RAM: 8GB Corsair 1866mhz Vengeance (2x4GB)
Hard Drive: 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB(https://imgur.com/HlUTtjP.png)
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case:Corsair Carbide Spec-03
PSU: 450w PSU
Rig is 3 years old. (No warranties remaning)

As the title says, starting last week my Monitor will go dark after playing a moderatly intensive game for a little while and not pick up GPU inputs and in order to get it back I need to restart PC via power button. When this happens audio is unaffected and the PC is still clearly running. When this happens the Hard Drive Activity Light will go solid white, however it also does this at random times during regular use. *Sometimes* when this occures the Event Viewer will display a 4101(https://imgur.com/CYtDqe5.png) error, but not everytime.


This crash doesn't occur during regular use such as Internet usage and small flash games. Additionaly I've noticed that the amount of proccesses running in the background seems to have increased lately(https://imgur.com/AlwCguJ.png) and Disk usage occasionaly bumps to 100%(https://imgur.com/S1Fza7m.png) for some reason, although this has been occuring ever since I got this PC

Things that I've tried so far:
- New cable for GPU>Monitor (Monitor will not recognise HDMI or DVI when crashed)
- Updated GPU Drivers
- Updated all Windows Drivers
- Updated to Windows 10
- Malware Scan
- Underclocking
- Furmark test for 20 minutes (stopped early since I didn't want to crash) temps stopped at around 75/76c and fans at about 64%

At thing point I believe it's the GPU dying that's causing this. However, the disk usage usage is throwing me off. Any and all help and opinions are welcome!

Thank you for your time.

 

[BaroUK2]

You can try following, not in particular order;

• If you have used any modified bios, flash back its original bios.
  
• Remove any overclocking or any graphic card utilities such as Afterburner or similar.
  
• Reset your motherboard settings by using clr cmos jumper.
• Use DDU in windows safe mode and remove all graphics drivers, reboot and reinstall drivers again or try older generation nvidia drivers.
• Remove your graphic card and make sure pci-x slots are dust free.
• Make sure graphic card is pushed all the way down in pci-x slot.
  
• Make sure pci-x power connectors are connected propeprly.
  
• Dont use Furmark, Use Superposition benchmark to test your graphic card and see if its causing the same issue.
  
• If you are not overclocking your card increase voltage or power usage in driver utilities, might need a slight bump in voltage.
• Disable PCIe Link State Power Management in advanced power plan options.
• Try playing games with vync on or off incase problem is caused by refresh rates.
• If everything else fails test your graphic card or monitor in / with another system.
• If everything else fails remove all parts and clean your computer case + parts including psu and test your system out of the case.

Basically you need to rule out

• is it software problem, something corrupted? remove and fresh install everything.
  
• is it hardware problem, part failing?, not enough voltage?, dirty?, thermal issue? reset all parts, clean dust, make sure everything connected properly, test system with bare minimum requied parts.
  
• is it wear and tear?, might need slightly more voltage?, re-apply thermal pads or paste?
• did it overheat and some parts loose? might need reflow or cooked in oven? or heat gun?

Good luck...