Does the PC monitor turn black while playing certain games?
Does the PC monitor turn black while playing certain games?
Hello.
My PC monitor frequently goes black during certain games at particular moments. The system remains powered on, but the screens simply disappear. I have to restart to fix the problem. The black screen appears consistently in the games that cause it. Most other games run smoothly without any issues.
I know one game that reliably causes a black screen within about ten seconds in a specific menu. This helps me identify potential fixes more quickly.
I’m not sure whether the issue lies with the GPU, CPU, power supply, or something else. I reinstalled Windows a couple of years ago, and the problem lessened after the update, though it still occurs. Nothing is overclocked, and I haven’t tried any changes before.
I suspect it could be related to an overloaded power supply—my PC has been built with many components over ten years, and I thought I might have pushed it too far—but a higher wattage PSU didn’t help. GPU stress tests never trigger the black screen even when under heavy load.
I’ve tried adjusting voltages using MSI Afterburner without success. Graphics driver updates don’t make a difference either. Running games with or without the AMD Adrenaline software active doesn’t change the outcome.
This problem seems to happen only in certain games at specific times, which is unusual since some game triggers require minimal graphics load. I play games that heavily stress the GPU and they still run well without blackouts.
It doesn’t appear to be connected to overheating; I rarely reach 60°C, but it crashes around 40°C. I’m not sure what’s causing this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I have never experienced a complete black screen in any benchmark, not even those where performance is extremely slow, like 4fps. I've completed around 6 to 7 benchmarks. The games involved are Deep Rock Galactic, Elder Scrolls Online, and EVE Online. DRG and ESO appear to behave somewhat unpredictably when they do this. I can't identify a clear pattern. EVE is especially unusual because it only ever crashes on the planetary industry screen, which seems less demanding graphically compared to other parts of the game, though it consistently freezes for about 10 to 20 seconds.
In menus or less demanding sections, I think the card's power and clocks may decrease, leading to the black screen, which isn't too much but enough to make the card slow down. This could be due to AMD drivers, especially if the version is different. Lowering the card's clock speed might help maintain more stable timing.
verify if a minidump file exists by examining the system's up time value. Also notes that the black screen has been recovered; it plays a game, then goes to a black screen and returns to the game. Transitioning from game to blank screen indicates no recovery via Windows. (check for a minidump in this scenario)
waiting a short while to be sure, but for now boju's advice about underclocking seems to be effective. it hasn't crashed since then (adjusting values), though i still think it would be good to test further. i'll update after trying more things. thanks for all the help and ideas.