# Crash to black screen when gaming only



## solacim (Sep 28, 2010)

My pc system was working fine for the last two years. I have a 8800 gts graphics card. 3.0 cpu, soundblaster extreme, and 3 memory. I was playing Bio Shock 2 and my game kept freezing....needing a reboot. Eventually it crashed to a black screen. No sound, nothing. Now all my games crash to black screen. Hard drive makes a intermittant clicking noise after the crash while frozen. Computer does NOT crash when surfing internet and other functions. Hard drive going bad? Computer has same power supply and in same area (regarding cooling).


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## Tanis (May 30, 2006)

Hi and welcome to TSG.

Ideally we could do with a bit more information about your PC.

What is the exact make and model of the machine, assuming its a 'big brand' name like HP or Dell?
Have you upgraded any component since you bought it?

If it is a custom or self built machine, what is the exact make and model of motherboard (including revision number), Power Supply (including wattage etc.), RAM, processor, any optical drives (CD/DVD), how many hard drives and what type (SATA, IDE etc.), how many case fans and what size, any USB devices attached etc.

The more information you can give us the better.


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## solacim (Sep 28, 2010)

Computer is custom. Asus P5NSLI motherboard, LGA775 socket, power supply at least 400, 3.0 intel processor, 8800 gts nvidia graphics 512, 4 gig ram (3+ actual), Maxtor sata hard drive (PLENTY of space), dvd and cd drives, 2 case fans, soundblaster extreme soundcard. Computer has same equipment for past two years, sitting in same spot in office. Was working fine when gaming. Now, after gaming 20-30 minutes, it crashes to totally black screen. Last crash I needed my Vista Home Premium disk to reboot. Hard drive clicks intermittantly when crash occurs. I'm thinking it's going out? Computer is fine when surfing net, ect. But gaming makes it crash now. Only thing plugged in is mouse, speakers, basics.


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## Tanis (May 30, 2006)

Things I would look at are as follows:

1) Heat - What are you machines temperatures?
Download and install HWMonitor, then run it in the background while you run a game for 5 mins or so (assuming you can with the crashes happening), if not, run some apps, surf the net etc for a few mins with it running then post a screenshot of the temps.

2) PSU - The Power Supply could be on its way out and not producing sufficient, stable, power when under load. 400w really is at the bottom limit to run that rig and if its a cheap unit it may well be dieing. What is the exact make, model and wattage?

3) Drivers - Are all your drivers, including Windows updates, fully up to date?

4) Graphics Card - Could be on its way out, check others first.

5) Hard Drive - Could be a problem here, maybe use Seatools to do a diagnostic check on the drive.

6) RAM - Could be a problem here, download and use Memtest86, create a bootable CD and run the diagnostics to test you RAM, this may take some time to complete but let it do at least 2 full tests and see if any errors are reported.

Those are thing first things I would check, probably in that order.


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## sell4u (Oct 10, 2010)

The "no signal" error was bother me also after i upgraded my os from windows xp x64 to windows 7 ultimate x64, almost every graphic heavy related games, and the time to crash is totally random, some can play 5mins some can play for hours.. etc dragon age, mass effect 2, need for speed shift, borderlands. (few games can playing without black screen crash etc eschalon book 2, all point and click adventure games) 
After a week reading diffrent thread searching for the same problem that people had about the "black screen" while gaming i tried alot of diffrent method including update latest graphic driver, sound driver, BIOS version, NOT using windows aero theme, change the default sound quality in properties, playing games in windows mode, clean all the dusk inside cpu case, update all the latest windows available update, lower every in game setting and resolution, changing game to xp compatible mode, disable desktop composition, disable visual themes, run as admin, disable firewall, disable anti virus, unplug all usb hardware, disable auto windows update ALSO WON'T HELP. Until i download RIVATUNER and manually setting my gpu fan speed to 100% suddenly my problem gone !!! I can play any game at max setting for few hours even 10 hrs also don't have a single crash after doing the tweak for the gpu fan speed. It may sound weird but it does a great job to solve my problem !!!

My pc spec:
ASUS crosshair 2 formula
8gb ddr2 rams
windows 7 ultimate x64
AMD phenom 2 x4 965
ASUS ENGTX295
COOLER MASTER V10 air cooling fan
COOLER MASTER COSMO S CHASSIS
SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 226BW
ENERMAX GALAXY 1000watt PSU


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