Random Black Screen

fortuneseeker

fortuneseeker

fortuneseeker

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I am looking for advice to help diagnose the problem with my sons PC that suffers from random black screen - typically whilst gaming but recently a couple of times whilst browsing the internet/watching youtube etc.

We bought it in 2022 from Overclockers, its a decent gaming PC for my lad consisting of Asus Prime B660M-A motherboard, Intel Core i5 12400F, Asus GeForce RTX 3060Ti, Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB), EK Water Blocks EK-AIO 120 D-RGB All In One CPU Water Cooler - 120mm, WD Blue SN570 500GB SSD NVME M.2.

Fortunately we had an older 1060 gpu lying around so swapped out the 3060ti and gave that a try - but still get the random black screens. Sometimes he can game on it for a couple of days before a black screen occurs, other times it will black screen as he launches a game. It has been regularly cleaned and I've double checked all the connections are tight/RAM is seated correctly etc.

His Windows/Nvidia drivers have been kept up to date and I recently updated the BIOS (the black screen occurred both before and after the BIOS update). I'm planning on reformatting it this weekend to see if that helps but am thinking its more likely a hardware issue as black screen side, his PC runs fine and other than games theres not a lot on it.

Without having any other spare parts to help locate the problem what are the next steps I should try before taking it to a local repair shop?
 
The PSU is a Kolink Classic Power 700W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply.

The computer is still on, the *screens are dead and unresponsive - ctrl alt del does nothing, we have to hold the power button down to turn the PC off then turn it back on again.

*he has 2 monitors, we also disconnected each one in turn but the problem persists so have ruled those out as well.
 
Threepwood said:
ruh-oh!
is anything overclocked?
Click to expand...
I don't think so, I've certainly not done anything to it. IIRC we just gave Overclockers an idea of what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend bought what they recommended!

Other than buying and fitting a new PSU (not a small job for an amateur!) is there anyway to test whether it is the PSU thats failing? The randomness of when it happens means recreating the black screen condition is impossible.
 
fortuneseeker said:
I don't think so, I've certainly not done anything to it. IIRC we just gave Overclockers an idea of what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend bought what they recommended!

Other than buying and fitting a new PSU (not a small job for an amateur!) is there anyway to test whether it is the PSU thats failing? The randomness of when it happens means recreating the black screen condition is impossible.
Click to expand...

Take it the PC is no longer in warranty?

Your PSU is, I'm sorry to say, a pile of junk, and likely to be the issue.
 
Kelt said:
Take it the PC is no longer in warranty?

Your PSU is, I'm sorry to say, a pile of junk, and likely to be the issue.
Click to expand...

Ok that was probably my next guess after we'd ruled the GPU out. I'm guessing there is no way to test other than buying and fitting a new one? The PC was bought Nov 2022, highly unlikely it came with a 3yr warranty but will double check.
 
fortuneseeker said:
Ok that was probably my next guess after we'd ruled the GPU out. I'm guessing there is no way to test other than buying and fitting a new one? The PC was bought Nov 2022, highly unlikely it came with a 3yr warranty but will double check.
Click to expand...
to try another psu you don't have to dismantle the PC completely, just take the side off, unplug the psu main cables going into the motherboard, gpu etc, and plug the new one into those slots to try it after, buy a decent one, and that is your base for a new computer build should it not fix the computer
 
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Give them a ring! - Just had a look at a similar tier complete system and it's listed as having 3 year warranty:

The PSU also lists a 3 year warranty individually (although it'll still depend what warranty the whole system was sold with - do you still have the invoice? I would have thought tihs should state warranty terms):

It'd be interesting to know whether it's a full lock up or just the graphics that is stopping, if you have another PC (any PC!) then you could ping the machine when it blackscreens to see if it still responds, or if not then you could use something like AnyDesk (free for personal use) to connect remotely to the PC while it's blackscreened.

Do you have to hold the power button to shut it down? (i.e. if you just press it, does the PC eventually shut down 'gracefully'? - if not then that would indicate a full system lock up)

Good luck :)
 
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