Blackscreen / Freezing problem

[lordsphinx]

Hello wise MMOers!!

(caution, long post)

I've exhausted all ideas on what my problem could be, so I'm reaching out to all you fine folks to see if you could lead me in the right direction. I recently bought a GTX770 OC, and downloaded Witcher 2 to actually make use of it (normally just a WoW player). First time playing, I had a blackscreen freeze, and the speakers made a nice buzzing noise. I didn't overclock the card any more than it already is, and game was at GeForce "recommended" settings. I was getting a consistent 40-60 FPS with no lag spikes, and the GPU temp was fine before it happened. I turned the game settings down to low, and the same thing happened again.

Next thing I did was run a Furmark Burntest. It ran for just under an hour before I turned it off with no errors @ max 66 degrees (1080p, 8XMSAA). As far as I'm concerned, this should eliminate the GPU as the problem.

Next step was to play some other stuff to see if it happens in other games. I downloaded and started playing Simcity 5, thinking it would be one of the least GPU intensive things I could do while still having fun lol. After about an hour I had the same blackscreen freeze. This time FPS was a rock solid 60FPS (60hz monitor), and temps were very low.

Next was to make sure driver was up to date just in case, and it was. I downloaded the newest Beta release driver just to see if that was it, and the same thing happened again in Simcity.

Next, I ran Memtest86+ on each RAM stick individually, then both together. I got 2 clean passes each single channel, and 1 error in 4 passes dual channel. Thinking this could be the error, I loaded Windows with only single channel RAM and played some Simcity, and got the same blackscreen about an hour in.

I have not had this issue in WoW or Hearthstone at all. Both of these are loaded on my SSD, while the new games are on my HDD storage drive. I would download something new to my SSD to test, but it's completely full and I can't really delete any more. I don't think it could be an HDD issue, because I would expect more of a frozen screen issue, not blackscreen.

Full computer specs are in my signature. I don't have another PSU available to test, but I would think it this was the issue, I would be having it in anything I play.

Does anyone have any idea of what could be causing these issues? As much as I would think it's the new GPU, I can't get it to fail in any GPU burn-in or benchmarks.

Thank you for any ideas anyone may have. I have been at this literally all day, and I'm out of ideas. This is getting really frustrating!!

[Deleted]

hm, i´ll bet on the hdd as u already kinda eliminated the rest. if u havent mentioned sim city i might have pointed to the psu as witcher 2 is a lot more gpu demanding than wow and hearthstone and so, the gpu will draw more power. i dont see any other way though, than to test with another hdd and psu.

u could however take out the gpu and test a game with the integrated graphics (or if u have an older gpu) and see if the problem still is occuring.

[lordsphinx]

u could however take out the gpu and test a game with the integrated graphics (or if u have an older gpu) and see if the problem still is occuring.

This is a really good idea and I'm certainly going to try it, but wouldn't Furmark crash the GPU the same as Witcher 2? Furmark is pretty graphically intensive too lol.

[Deleted]

This is a really good idea and I'm certainly going to try it, but wouldn't Furmark crash the GPU the same as Witcher 2? Furmark is pretty graphically intensive too lol.

probably. anyhow if it should work without the gpu, before u are going to replace psu, hdd or anything else, i would wipe the pc and make a full clean install, get all newest drivers and test again with the 770.

just to get some more info. did u overclock ur cpu?

[lordsphinx]

probably. anyhow if it should work without the gpu, before u are going to replace psu, hdd or anything else, i would wipe the pc and make a full clean install, get all newest drivers and test again with the 770.

just to get some more info. did u overclock ur cpu?

I had it overclocked originally to 4.4Ghz (stable for over a year, temps < 80), but turned it down to 3.7 and ran Prime95 for an hour or so, temps stay around 60ish max. Doing a full install is going to be a P.I.T.A, I think I would rather buy a HDD and PSU first lol. Worst case scenario, I'll have them for the next build I do.

- - - Updated - - -

OK, so played for 4 hours straight on integrated GPU, no freezing. I have no idea how, but it has to be the GPU. Anyway, got an RMA on the new card. I can't be shut down for my WoW raid, so I got a second one on the way. Once my RMA gets all cleared up, I'll be running SLI.

Hopefully this fixes it, otherwise I'll still be trying to figure it out in a week or so =(