Strange (and annoying) PC glitch!

[Legend]

This is starting to drive me mad! No idea what's going on here but I have this problem when I start my PC, within a few minutes of it booting (sometimes almost instantly, and I don't even need to open a programme), my monitor will just go into power saving mode and not come back. It invariably happens within minutes of booting up, and often several times in a row upon restarting, but it happened once while some audio was playing and it did effectively freeze the computer up as I could here the audio skip and then stop, so it's not just the monitor. What is the problem here? I am not getting any error messages. Not sure if it's the graphics card, the CPU or what? Is something overheating maybe?

I have a Dell U2311H, i5 oc'd to 4ghz, and GTX 470 (with Zalman VF3000-F fitted).

Any thoughts?

*I'm baffled as to how it could be overheating though given this only ever occurs during start-up. I can be doing lots of intensive work on my system all day and it's rock solid.

 

[kingbal]

have you got an old graphics card lying around or a another PC with one? It's worth trying a different one to eliminate that as the cause.

EDIT; are the gpu drivers up to date?

 

[Howitzer]

Have you tried it without the OC? Could be an issue there... Try it at stock settings, if it still happens then you can look at component problems.

 

[Legend]

No i've got no other cards around unfortunately. Drivers are bang up to date, but maybe that's the problem?

As for the OC, I bought it from OCUK already overclocked, so I'm not sure how I would go about changing it.

 

[klidge]

Try giving the PSU and the GTX470 a good blow through with compressed air, it's amazing the hassle a bit of dust can cause at times. Take the grahics card out of its slot to clean it, and then reseat it and make sure the fan and power cables are firmly fitted.

It might not help, but its worth a couple of minutes time to try it.