[Open] Computer screen goes blank randomly.

Hello guys. Since past couple of months I've been running into this weird problem of my screen going blank randomly. It can happen anytime and not only when the computer is stressed. It can happen when I'm surfing the web, playing a game, watching a movie or even when I'm staring at an idle screen. The weird thing is the computer still seems to be running although nothing works and then I've to reboot it by hard reset. The problem usually occurs once every 3–4 days but sometimes it occurs more frequently and sometimes it may not show up in 10 days even.

Now I'd like to mention that since the problem started showing up I've had one faulty RAM stick which I replaced with a new one a couple of weeks ago. I thought the faulty RAM was the culprit but no, the blank screen continues to show up on random occasions. Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this problem?

Im having the same problem. Coincidence is, one of my Ram stick was also turned out to be faulty. Lets see how it goes now.

Piyush said:
Im having the same problem. Coincidence is, one of my Ram stick was also turned out to be faulty. Lets see how it goes now.

Please do let me know how it goes for you.

try a different cable for connecting monitor to pc. try running memtest86 to make sure whether ram is any culprit or not. also post a screenshot of crystal disk info.

Screen goes blank for me too. But only for a second, and then it comes back like nothing happened. Sometimes it happen two times in a row. And then doesn't happen continuously for days. It's totally random.

I am worried now.

I've already run 2 passes of memtest86+ on each of the sticks individually many times before but no error showed up. But that's exactly what happened last time before my RAM stick went bad and only after I was greeted by a "MEMORY MANAGEMENT" BSOD did the memtest86+ show errors in one of my RAM sticks. Also I have no spare cable to connect the monitor to PC.

Here goes Crystaldiskinfo

*i.imgur.com/gknZ6sb.png?1

I suspect the gpu or it's driver.

Oh no please not the gpu, it's fairly new. I wish it's just the driver but I've updated the driver a couple of times since the problem started showing up but to no avail.

can you check the gpu on some other pc?

No, I'm afraid I can't. But what I can do is run my PC on the IGP for a few days and see whether or not the problem shows up, if that is of any help in troubleshooting.

This will help greatly. Do so asap.

All right. Switched to IGP after the problem showed up again today. Let's see how it goes.

- - - Updated - - -

Just found out that there are a lot of similar complaints by people with this specific model (R7 260X) of graphics card irrespective of the vendor, all over the internet. Many who've RMA'd their card and got the same card as the replacement are still facing the same issues. Weird. :-?

^^R7 265 user here and now Im getting bad feeling about this whle situation.

Frankly speaking I don't trust the build quality of XFX anymore [ specially the cards selling in here ] .... so if your's is not made by XFX then it should be good

Anyway, there's may be other reasons like bad ram slot, incompatible ram module, faulty mem controller / cpu, loose connection between cpu / socket, motherboard's component faliure etc. behind the issue op and you are facing at random times.

Okay, I switched back to the discrete GPU a couple of days back. Couldn't stay with the IGP any longer because it can't even run my Blu-ray movies properly and when I realized that I'll die of boredom if it stays like this, I made the switch. Anyway, this time I decided to go back to the 13.12 Catalyst drivers because as far as I can remember they were the last stable drivers for me. It was only after I updated to the 14.something drivers, did the blank screen started to show up.

Now the weird thing is that games seem to be running better with the 13.12 drivers and by games I mean Watch Dogs. I was having a hard time running the game at high settings @900p previously with the latest drivers which made me tune down the settings to medium. This time when I played watch dogs, I noticed that the game was running much smoother than before at medium. So I tuned up the settings to high and surprisingly I found it to be totally playable.

Now I'd like to think that it's a driver related issue, or more specifically a mantle related issue. After a lot of googling around I've found out that a lot of people are accusing AMD's mantle drivers of being buggy and under-optimized and seems like the R7 line of cards have suffered the most from this. BUT before I come to any conclusion I must wait at least for 10 days or so and if the blank screen doesn't show up in this duration, then it's most definitely the drivers.

I'll too downgrade the drivers then.

Oh well, it happened again just a while back. So no use downgrading drivers. BUT I still think it's a driver related issue. How come so many people are facing exactly the same issue with the same series of cards? Anyway, I can't even RMA it because how am I going to prove to the shopkeeper that the card is faulty?

Yea, RMA wont help.
If the issue can be resolved via some driver update, then Im sure AMD will surely fix it soon.

Are you using hdmi/dvi for output? If so check the pc is properly earthed.

I'm using a dvi-to-vga adapter and earthing is fine, I think.
[MENTION=89186]Piyush[/MENTION]
Are you facing the issue from the start i.e. when you purchased your GPU or did it start showing up like 1–2 months later? My GPU worked fine in the beginning for ~2 months and then suddenly one day I got a blank screen out of nowhere and since then it shows up at least once a week.

I never used IGP
I plugged in GPU the same day I got new monitor. And yea, Im getting this weird issue since 1st week

^^And how old is your card?

3 months

Okay, mine is around 5. Well let's hope AMD comes up with some fix sooner rather than later.

Found this on another forum. This guy mtdew332 claims to have found the cause and solution to the problem.

From mtdew332:

"So after two weeks of searching for the cause / solution to my Black Screen issue, I think i've finally nailed it down.
With some help from overclock.net forums.
I'll just quote it here.

(This black screen from power transitions occurs because the memory clock jumps up to full speed (1250, etc), while the GPU voltage (which also controls the IMC--this is the problem) is STILL running at idle volts of 0.9xxx). That idle voltage is too low to handle the IMC, which is controlling the memory running at that speed (this is NOT due to defective memory modules btw), and thus the card black screens.)

The fix, is to increase the GPU voltage, which ALSO increases the idle voltage to the IMC as well. (previous generation cards used separate voltages for idle clocks and 3D). This Is purely a bios/design problem. The IMC should NEVER be running at 0.9xx when the memory jumps to full speed, or, alternatively, there should be 'lesser' memory speed jumps, for when a light load is put on the GPU, so the memory doesn't jump from 150 MHz to 1250, but instead it could be 500 MHz for a very light load (like when the core goes from 300 to 450 MHz), etc.
This is exactly my issue and the solution.

Symptoms
1: Black screen on cold boot.
2: Random Black Screen while at desktop / browsing web / youtube
3: No Black Screen Issues while gaming.

Solution
1: Upped my core voltage to plus 25mV using MSI AB.
This upped my VDDC to 1.008V at idle and stabilized the Memory controller for those jumps from 300/150 to 450/1250 at the desktop and now no more Black Screens.

I still occasionally see one on cold boot if it happens before Windows and AB loads to set the new voltage.

The Permanent Solution would be a bios with the slightly higher core voltage.
Or a way to edit the bios and set it manually myself."

"I submitted one and also suggested that the alternate solution posted above of limiting the memory speed to a max of 500mhz instead of 1250mhz in 2D mode may be a better solution.
Since increasing the core voltage also increases heat and will cause the cards performance to drop some since it will throttle more to stay within thermal limits.

Ive actually tried this with a program called GPU tweak from another vendor that allows you to actually set/limit 2D core and mem clocks.
And it works just as well as upping the core voltage a bit.
I set the 2D core and memory at a fixed speed of 450/500....no Black screens.

So limiting the 2D memory clocks to 500mhz would work just as well with no voltage/temp increase or drop in 3D performance."

Did you try it out?

No, not yet. Anyway, I'm not gonna play around with voltages under any circumstances as I've never done that before. I might give the alternative solution a try though, but I don't know how to adjust the 2D memory clocks only.

5 days...no blank screen. This probably works.

- - - Updated - - -

:offtopic:

Guys, my computer screen went off and then came back almost instantly during a lightning strike a few minutes ago. I immediately shut down the PC after that. Now the PC is running fine though. Should I be worried?

No need to worry. Same happened with me a month ago maybe.

Phew, thanks. I couldn't sleep last night.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep my PC switched off and unplugged during lightning storms from now on. Yesterday when the lightning hit and my display went off, I almost had a heart attack. I thought my PC is fried but thankfully it came back.

10 days...no blank screen. I think it's time I declare this issue resolved.

Nice, so then I will too adjust those RAM frequency.

Yeah give it a try. Hope it works for you too.