Computer Blackscreening and restarting during games.

[WarGanisM]

PC specs
Win 7 SP1
I7-950
12gb ram DDR3
GTX 770 2gb Current Driver 381.65 (although issues originally happened on a different older driver and 3-4 other drivers including current)

First of all At first I thought it was temps, but they are all within safe levels.

The issue first started whilst playing the Forest a couple of months ago. After many sessions randomly both my screens went black, and then the pc auto restarted. But it didn't do it again for a while, after the second time it happened. I just thought well enough of this game, and didn't play it anymore.

Then I was playing Warhammer Total war never had any issues.

Then got a cheap copy of Warhammer Vermintide, Upon install and tryign to play that games no matter the gfx settings it instantly blackscreened me and causes the pc to restart.

Also weirdly enough when the PC restarts it never successfully boot to windows, it either gets to the windows screen and then monitors lose signal and black screen, or windows gets stuck. But typically always successfully gets back into windows on a second reboot.

So I said well to hell with Vermintide, and went back to playing Warhammer total war, which always played fine, but then it started happening randomly in that too. After all the crashes and the OS already being long overdue a reformat, the Os was so butchered, and the Pc being completely fudged to operate I reformatted.

So fresh reformat newest Nvidia driver 381.65
I decide to play Mad Max, settings were defaulted to high, game launched fine, went through cutscenes etc, the instant it loaded to actual game, blackscreen, pc restarts. However I changed the gfx settings to Standard (one setting before high) and the issue never happened again in Mad Max.

I currently have Borderlands 2 installed, has yet to happen to that game appears fine.

So recently 4 days ago installed Warthunder, a game I have put 100's of hours into on this same machine. Played completely fine for the first 3 days. Now last night I get back from work, fire up the computer jump straight into the game, within 1min f playing blam blackscreens and pc auto restarts.
Changed gfx to medium, Game Blackscreens and restarts pc instantly at game launch. On high atleast it gets ingame for 1min or so. Tried windowed mode etc same results.

Reliability history just states VideoCard hardware error.

GFX card temps havn't even reached to 72+C (game dependent)
Cpu sometimes reaches 50ishC
everything else super cool at 30ish C
Anyone have any idea what to look for, or ideas? any help much appreciated!

[DarkDeamon]

Check your memory. Either find a load tester or take a stick out one at a time and try it.

[BillBailey]

So it seems that it only does it with games, i'd say your GFX card is the problem. See if you can get hold of another card to test the problem.

[WarGanisM]

@BillBailey yes only ever in games.

It's weird because it feels like some games it never happens at all, but then if i play a new game and it happens, it's almost like it can then trigger off on games that it didn't before. Example was Warhammer total war, never had a single issue until I first tried Vermintide, and then on the same day Warhammer total war was then effected.

Also weird that it happened in Mad Max in High, but not in standard. Although started happening in Warthunder, but medium just made it worse.

@DarkDeamon just did a Memory test via Windows Diagnostic tool and it reported no errors. Or should I try memtest86?

[DarkDeamon]

Try the memtest as wdt is crap

[taran]

I have had this happen a couple of times in the last six months, first was the cpu fan connector was loose on the mainboard, so it hit temps in games and shutdown. re seating the connector fixed it.

and the other day total blackscreen wouldnt boot to bios... took memory out and swapped slots and worked fine..

try both to start...cpuid monitor is a great free monitoring progrmamme for whats goin on in your machine.

[warlock359205]

I know this could sound stupid from an hold fart like me but you could also try while the pc is off ,pull your graphic card out and put it back as you could have a dirty connection developed in the pci slot.

[Kastagir]

Pretty sure it's your PSU from the symptoms you're describing.

GPU pulls more juice when gaming - juice not there - black screen crash and restart. Fails restart due to PSU being improperly set to work. Warm restart fixes.

Could be your GPU... Could be your memory, but mem testing would disprove this and it would more likely BSOD, not Black screen on the latter.

I'd give your PSU a clean with a can of compressed air. It's a cheap test (just don't turn the can upside down and don't do it when its turned on ) although you'd most likely need a new one.

[WarGanisM]

When I get a chance, I do a memtest,and report back.

Really don't think it's a fan/temp issue, due to temps all being reported as cool across mulitple programs, speccy/speedfan etc.

My pc is overdue a clean, although don't think its going to be temp related, but could be psu, so I will give it a blow out, when I get access to my air compressor.

Just hope whether it be the gfx card or compressor it can be fixed, cost free, as really cannot afford to buy anything anew

[WarGanisM]

Really appreciating the help/feedback though!