[Open] Computer screen goes blank randomly.

TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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?
 
Piyush

Piyush

Lanaya
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.
 
rijinpk1

rijinpk1

Aspiring Novelist
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.
 
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
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.
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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.
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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.
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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. :-?
 
topgear

topgear

Super Moderator
Staff member
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 :D 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.
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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.
 
OP
TheFallenLord

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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?
 
Piyush

Piyush

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

TheFallenLord

Journeyman
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.
 
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