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Before I describe the symptoms:
Graphics card is GTX 660, connected to it are two monitors (one via DVI, one via HDMI), the monitor in question is a Samsung Syncmaster SA350 and is connected to the HDMI port.
PSU unit does 400W, the graphics card isn't supposed to draw more than ~113W, the CPU [i5 2500k] not more than ~95W. Other than that, the only thing connected to the PSU are two fans (for CPU and case) and an HDD (no dvd drive or anything).
Symptoms:
Randomly (usually while playing games, but has happened outside when just browsing or something as well) the Samsung Syncmaster monitor will go black for a couple of seconds at a time (usually around one second, a couple of weeks ago there was one extreme case where it lasted about 10 seconds) and then come back. It doesn't turn itself off, you can still see that it just draws a black screen (since that black is much brighter than the black you see when it's turned off).
In some games both monitors will go black at random points and then the one which contained the game window will draw weird colors and the system will freeze entirely. I measured temperature, and it pretty much never goes above ~58 degrees Celsius even in Crysis 3 on maxed settings, so that shouldn't be an issue. The times when this happens don't seem to depend on how hardware intensive the game is, since it also happens in games like Medieval 2. It does however only seem to happen with certain games, e.g. in 1000 hours of Dota 2 it has never crashed, but when I play CS: GO, it pretty much freezes within 30 minutes guaranteed.
What could be the cause of this? Faulty PSU?
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do you have any possibility to test another hdmi monitor? do you have the latest nvidia driver? if you only connect 1 monitor to your gpu (especially the faulty one), does it freeze aswell? sounds to me like your gpu does this.
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Have yet to test it with only one monitor. Yes I have the latest drivers, but I also tested other versions (doesn't do anything).
The GPU is only a couple months old, and it did this pretty much right out of the box when I bought it. Would suck if it was faulty.
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United Kingdom20284 Posts
What PSU is it? There's a massive difference between a high quality 430w unit and some random 400w, i think thats much more likely to be a problem than GPU failing after a couple months
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On March 04 2013 02:36 Cyro wrote:
What PSU is it? There's a massive difference between a high quality 430w unit and some random 400w, i think thats much more likely to be a problem than GPU failing after a couple months
http://www.amazon.de/quiet-E8-400W-Straight-Power-PC-Netzteil/dp/B0049GYKY8/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1362337216&sr=1-2
My initial thought was PSU as well, since it happened basically right after I switched out the graphics cards. A long time ago (maybe two years now) some water dropped into the running PC and broke my mainboard. Maybe the PSU got something off as well. If it has some popped capacitors or something I suppose it could be possible that it still works fine but now that the GTX 660 needs a little bit more energy than my last card, it just can't bring it anymore. I asked here though because I have no way to test the faultyness of the PSU (no replacement or measurement instruments here) so I want to avoid blindly buying a new one. Although, getting a 600W PSU probably wouldn't kill me cost wise. Can't be a bad investment either way.
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As a small update, I tried it with one monitor, and it still happens. Also tried to downclock both memory and core clocks by 30 mhz and it still happens. Tried uninstalling all graphicscard related stuff and reinstalling.. still happens.
The latest test game where this happens is Tomb Raider, where it happens pretty much within 5 minutes of playing. Doesn't happent at all in Dead Space 3. What I will test soon is whether game settings have something to do with it... although I doubt it. Medieval 2 is a pretty old game by now and locked to 60FPS it shouldn't bather the GPU by too much, but still produces the same kind of crashes. Dota 2 on the other hand is FPS unlocked and simply doesn't crash.
Will report back later.
edit: Settings don't affect it. Even with everything on minimal settings, and minimal resolution, the PC still freezes. No idea how to progress without sending back the graphics card and waiting a couple of weeks for it to return.
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As a last update (not sure what I can do after this), I tried it with my Windows 7 32 bit installation that I had still installed on this PC. The advantage of this installation is that it has literally nothing installed except all necessary drivers, and google chrome. In this installation, Tomb Raider runs much more stable. It doesn't seem to crash/freeze indoors at all, but when I go outside where the drawing distance is pretty high, the game crashes, although the PC doesn't freeze and Windows doesn't report the graphics card driver as crashing.
Oh man.
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Maybe your RAM is acting up? Can u try testing it?
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Yeah at this point i'd definitely run Memtest86 for about 10 hours to see if it isn't your RAM that went bust.
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well, in order to not open a new thread, I kinda face the same problem. I have dual monitor setup, for almost 2months now, but today, while watching IEM and playing (playing in main, IEM in second) the monitor just went black, but it's receiving signal, since the light is green (when it doesn't receive signal, the light becomes orange).
I've tried messing around with ATI Catalyst Control Center, and the GPU recognizes the screen, as its displayed in the options.
My setup:
i5 750 @ 2.67Ghz
HD 6870
SSD 128Gb
HDD 1TB
6Gb Ram
550W Pro XFX
Samsung SyncMaster S22B350 (main monitor)
Acer AL1916W (second monitor, it counts almost 5years of using)
What should i do?
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@heishe, I'd probably try running a GPU benchmark/stress test (I used furmark, but I hear that has problems with Nvidia cards) to see if the GPU looks off. I had some troubles earlier, and it turns out it was just my SSD, but that's what I used. Also, if that's clean, I'd try to check for your hard drive's health, run a diagnostic for that too. But PSU seems likely as well, I'd just check those other two first since they have readily available test software out there.
@HyDrA, hmm, not sure what causes this but I'd try the following to see if any of it does anything:
Switch your display ports around, try HDMI instead of VGA, etc, swap your monitors around.
Update graphics card drivers.
Mess around with other videos (I know for me that if I switch to my left screen to play GO or something, and I'm watching youtube or maybe it was netflix on the right, it'll go black because of some sort of MS silverlight conflict with two screens.
Having two screens can be buggy lol.
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Still, the monitor lives, I mean, it's being recognized xD, and this monitor only accepts VGA. Drivers are updated.
I turn the monitor ON, and it doesn't give any message, like "No Input" when it usually did.
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On March 06 2013 07:36 Avtonikov wrote:
@heishe, I'd probably try running a GPU benchmark/stress test (I used furmark, but I hear that has problems with Nvidia cards) to see if the GPU looks off. I had some troubles earlier, and it turns out it was just my SSD, but that's what I used. Also, if that's clean, I'd try to check for your hard drive's health, run a diagnostic for that too. But PSU seems likely as well, I'd just check those other two first since they have readily available test software out there.
@HyDrA, hmm, not sure what causes this but I'd try the following to see if any of it does anything:
Switch your display ports around, try HDMI instead of VGA, etc, swap your monitors around.
Update graphics card drivers.
Mess around with other videos (I know for me that if I switch to my left screen to play GO or something, and I'm watching youtube or maybe it was netflix on the right, it'll go black because of some sort of MS silverlight conflict with two screens.
Having two screens can be buggy lol.
Yes, I will try to get my hands on a GPU benchmark. I tried ram by now (have been running Memtest86 the past few hours) and it's completely fine. Also I played Rome:Total War (the LOTR mod) for quite a few hours and it didn't freeze (Medieval freezes after less than 30 minutes). These problems are so weird.
@HyDrA, interesting, Samsung Syncmaster as well. It seems like the monitor blackness and the crashing issue are unrelated?
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United Kingdom20284 Posts
I had the same behavior before my 580 bricked, but again i wouldnt really expect that from a system without a lot of uptime.. (broken on arrival?) It was odd for a couple days (but ran furmark etc fine, strangely) before it completely died
the monitor just went black, but it's receiving signal, since the light is green (when it doesn't receive signal, the light becomes orange). Exactly this, quite a lot
At this point i would try to test with another GPU, but if you cant you are kinda stuck i guess. One of those problems where stuff just does not work and it's not immediately obvious why
Its kinda odd that all 3 of us are using Samsung syncmasters, but i guess their monitors are not that uncommon
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q7Ok2pp.png)
Not sure how this happened, my typo's must be really ambiguous XD
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I don't think the freezes and the black monitor are caused by the same issue.
For the freezes, sadly idk.
For the monitor:
I have exactly the same issue with my (~5 year old) second monitor. It became worse once, now it is better again. The capacitors might be old and broken. I observed that the monitor workes more reliably when it is warm, but i'm no expert.
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United Kingdom20284 Posts
I got both freezes/crashes and black but detecting signal monitor, not the monitor but the display outs before GPU died, could switch monitor cables and output 2 would stay black etc - thats why i said it, its very similar to both cases mentioned
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It's really weird, since the second monitor receives power, but doesn't make the "No signal" thingy. The screen just keeps black.
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Well, new GPU fixed it. Bought a 7870 and will send the 660 back for a refund (even after almost using it for 4 months amazon said they will give a refund. Pretty cool).
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United Kingdom20284 Posts
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Oh, it just fixed the freezing by the way. The monitor going black is connected to the crappy HDMI cable I'm using, I'm pretty sure. That, or the monitor doesn't let it properly connect to it. When I hit it with my toes, the effect is reproduced (still happens if I don't touch it at all though).
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EPT
