Not really sure what's going wrong

[Unspec]

First, my specs. I included what monitors I use in case its relevant to the issue:

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
• MSI GTX 670 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV
• Intel i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz
• 16 GB of Corsair Vengence RAM (4x 4GB sticks)
• Seasonic X750 power supply
• ASUS P8-Z77-V
• Corsair Force 3 60GB
• WD Caviar Black 1TB
• Two old WD drives, not sure what type. Only used for storage and nothing else
• ViewSonic VX2453 (connected with HDMI)
• Dell P2014H (DP) (connected with displayport)

 

The problem(s) seems to have started around last Thursday or Friday. I tend to leave my computer on overnight, and have been doing so for the past two years I've had it. I just turn the monitors off and go to sleep, and everything works fine in the morning. Recently though, problems have started to occur. Every single morning since Friday or Thursday, not really sure, I would turn the monitors back on and just be greeted with a black screen. The monitors are on, they just never receive a signal. Sometimes if I plug my monitors back in, I'll get a blackscreen with a cursor. Sometimes replugging them in doesn't do anything. Computer's power options are set to never turn display off and never go to sleep. Sometimes I'd also get a blackscreen when playing games, such as League of Legends, Cities in Motion 2, and Skyrim. Sometimes the graphics driver recovers. Sometimes it doesn't and I just get a blackscreen or a blackscreen with a cursor. Both the first issue and second issue are only fixed by a hard reset. When this occurs, I can still hear everything fine, both sounds from in-game and from Skype.

 

The final issue is that if I leave my computer on with the monitors on and leave for a while, such as go to class, sometimes I'd return to a seemingly normal computer, but find that everything doesn't actually work. I can hit buttons in the browser, open the start menu, etc, but nothing actually work. If I refresh a webpage, it'll refresh forever and eventually chrome will prompt me to kill the page. Trying to open a window or program (both from start menu and taskbar) will result in the taskbar and start menu freezing/hanging. Can't open task manager with Ctrl Shift Esc, or the menu thing with Ctrl Alt Delete. Again, only a hard reset fixes this issue.

 

Things I've tried to fix the issue with:

• Uninstall and reinstall graphics drivers. Both the normal way through GeForce Experience and clean uninstalls/installs with DDU. Tried both newest drivers (344.65) and and older one (344.48)*. DDU was run in safe mode.
• Removed overclock from graphics card. Old overclock used to be +10 on the core and +500 on the memory.
• Lower overclock on CPU from 4.4 to 4.2
• Increase voltage for CPU
• Combination of both of the above
• Change power settings to never turn screen off and never go to sleep (screen was originally set to turn off after 15 minutes)

Nothing listed above has fixed the issue. I feel that its something with the graphics card because it didn't give me a blackscreen one time, but the secondary Dell monitor was glitched out and flickering like crazy, while the ViewSonic worked perfectly fine. This happened when I ran an anti-virus scan overnight (Avast 2015 and Malwarebytes). But I'm not 100% sure what is actually wrong. Any help or advice towards identifying or resolving this issue would be highly appreciated. I am ready to provide any additional information if needed.

 

Edit: Also realized that since this issue has been happening, League of Legends has been unable to launch on its own. When I hit launch in the patcher, it starts the process (LoLClient.exe) but doesn't actually launch the game until I manually launch LolClient.exe. Not sure if related or relevant, but just in case it is.

 

*344.75 just came out. Going to give it a go.

 

Edit: Updated specs to reflect what I found out about the two older drives.

[Unspec]

Did you try dusting out your graphics card? and maybe reseating it in the PCIe slot? or maybe giving it more voltage? it sounds like a graphics card problem to me. If nothing else, maybe try reinstalling Windows.

 

Will try dusting it out and reseating it. Already giving it max voltage in MSI Afterburner and power limit has been increased to max.

 

Edit: And this is with the card on default clock speeds.

[Unspec]

Putting max voltage into it ain't exactly goreat for the VRMs. You might try seeing if you can RMA it.

 

Doesn't Nvidia hard cap it anyways?

[Raudi_]

Doesn't Nvidia hard cap it anyways?

Nvidia does do a hard cap but from reading the post is seems like the card is possibly dying, I killed a 770 using 1.3V for almost a year in SLI with it running at 80+C when gaming. VRM's got all burnt out and the voltage controller burned up. Best thing for you to do is to try and do an RMA with the card before its to late.

[Captain_WD]

First, my specs. I included what monitors I use in case its relevant to the issue:

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
• MSI GTX 670 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV
• Intel i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz
• Seasonic X750 power supply
• ASUS P8-Z77-V
• Corsair Force 3 60GB
• WD Caviar Black 1TB
• Two no name HDDs from an old all in one, only used for storage and nothing else
• ViewSonic VX2453 (connected with HDMI)
• Dell P2014H (DP) (connected with displayport)

 

The problem(s) seems to have started around last Thursday or Friday. I tend to leave my computer on overnight, and have been doing so for the past two years I've had it. I just turn the monitors off and go to sleep, and everything works fine in the morning. Recently though, problems have started to occur. Every single morning since Friday or Thursday, not really sure, I would turn the monitors back on and just be greeted with a black screen. The monitors are on, they just never receive a signal. Sometimes if I plug my monitors back in, I'll get a blackscreen with a cursor. Sometimes replugging them in doesn't do anything. Computer's power options are set to never turn display off and never go to sleep. Sometimes I'd also get a blackscreen when playing games, such as League of Legends, Cities in Motion 2, and Skyrim. Sometimes the graphics driver recovers. Sometimes it doesn't and I just get a blackscreen or a blackscreen with a cursor. Both the first issue and second issue are only fixed by a hard reset. When this occurs, I can still hear everything fine, both sounds from in-game and from Skype.

 

The final issue is that if I leave my computer on with the monitors on and leave for a while, such as go to class, sometimes I'd return to a seemingly normal computer, but find that everything doesn't actually work. I can hit buttons in the browser, open the start menu, etc, but nothing actually work. If I refresh a webpage, it'll refresh forever and eventually chrome will prompt me to kill the page. Trying to open a window or program (both from start menu and taskbar) will result in the taskbar and start menu freezing/hanging. Can't open task manager with Ctrl Shift Esc, or the menu thing with Ctrl Alt Delete. Again, only a hard reset fixes this issue.

 

Things I've tried to fix the issue with:

• Uninstall and reinstall graphics drivers. Both the normal way through GeForce Experience and clean uninstalls/installs with DDU. Tried both newest drivers (344.65) and and older one (344.48)*. DDU was run in safe mode.
• Removed overclock from graphics card. Old overclock used to be +10 on the core and +500 on the memory.
• Lower overclock on CPU from 4.4 to 4.2
• Increase voltage for CPU
• Combination of both of the above
• Change power settings to never turn screen off and never go to sleep (screen was originally set to turn off after 15 minutes)

Nothing listed above has fixed the issue. I feel that its something with the graphics card because it didn't give me a blackscreen one time, but the secondary Dell monitor was glitched out and flickering like crazy, while the ViewSonic worked perfectly fine. This happened when I ran an anti-virus scan overnight (Avast 2015 and Malwarebytes). But I'm not 100% sure what is actually wrong. Any help or advice towards identifying or resolving this issue would be highly appreciated. I am ready to provide any additional information if needed.

 

*344.75 just came out. Going to give it a go.

 

Hey Unspec,

 

You mentioned that you are using two old HDDs besides the WD Black. It is possible that either of them has errors on and causes your computer to fail. I would run a check on them to make sure they are ok and safe to work with. Every manufacturer has their own program for checking, so I would recommend checking their manufacturer and get the appropriate tool. You can use WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool for the WD Black drive (and on the others if you can't find the other tools). I would recommend running both the quick and the extended tests to check for the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status as well as for any bad sectors that might have appeared. You could also run chkdsk /r from the cmd to check for any bad clusters.

 

Do you have all your latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS update and firmware? It might be a driver issue. Also a file from your OS might be corrupted and a reinstall or system restore might help.

 

You could also do a full system check from the BIOS or a full stress test to check if any of the hardware is causing this.

 

Hope this helps. Keep us updated

 

Captain_WD.

[Unspec]

 

Hey Unspec,

 

You mentioned that you are using two old HDDs besides the WD Black. It is possible that either of them has errors on and causes your computer to fail. I would run a check on them to make sure they are ok and safe to work with. Every manufacturer has their own program for checking, so I would recommend checking their manufacturer and get the appropriate tool. You can use WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool for the WD Black drive (and on the others if you can't find the other tools). I would recommend running both the quick and the extended tests to check for the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status as well as for any bad sectors that might have appeared. You could also run chkdsk /r from the cmd to check for any bad clusters.

 

Do you have all your latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS update and firmware? It might be a driver issue. Also a file from your OS might be corrupted and a reinstall or system restore might help.

 

You could also do a full system check from the BIOS or a full stress test to check if any of the hardware is causing this.

 

Hope this helps. Keep us updated

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Will do. Left computer on overnight again, without turning the monitors off. Got a BSOD, along with the flickering/glitches. Couldn't read the code due to how bad the flickering was.

 

Edit: Finished quick tests, all three drives passed. Starting extended tests.

[Captain_WD]

Will do. Left computer on overnight again, without turning the monitors off. Got a BSOD, along with the flickering/glitches. Couldn't read the code due to how bad the flickering was.

 

Edit: Finished quick tests, all three drives passed. Starting extended tests.

 

 

Make sure to do the rest of the check-ups. Next time the flickering happens, try taking a photo of it (or multiple) so we can try and read it. do you hear any beeping sounds from the MOBO when the error occurs? 

 

Captain_WD.

[Unspec]

 

Make sure to do the rest of the check-ups. Next time the flickering happens, try taking a photo of it (or multiple) so we can try and read it. do you hear any beeping sounds from the MOBO when the error occurs? 

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

No sounds. I'll try to next time. Though I did just come back from classes and the computer was unresponsive once again. I could open windows start menu, close windows, etc, but couldn't actually open anything or interact with anything. Mouse curser changed to the text selection thing when hovering over search bar and everything, just that nothing reacts.

 

Did an extended test on the WD drive, passed the test. Running tests on other two drives now.

 

Edit: Just realized from looking at the drive names in the tool that all three drives are WD drives actually. A 500GB and a 320GB.

 

Edit 2: Finished rests. All three drives passed.

[Unspec]

Just crashed again. This time, it crashed to blackscreen with cursor, and the graphics actually came back this time. Nothing actually worked though, so it didn't actually recover. Snapped some pictures.

 

 

What happened when I tired to move my spotify window

[badmax]

Hi,

 

What about resource usage? RAM usage through the night and free space on C drive?

Also - do you get any errors in event viewer during the night?

 

Try msconfig - diagnostic start-up to rule out weird application issue.

[ionbasa]

Just crashed again. This time, it crashed to blackscreen with cursor, and the graphics actually came back this time. Nothing actually worked though, so it didn't actually recover. Snapped some pictures.

 

 

What happened when I tired to move my spotify window

That is definitely a driver or Windows' OS error. Have you tried running "sfc /scannow" from an administrative command prompt?

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

 

After running the command, what does the result say?

[Unspec]

That is definitely a driver or Windows' OS error. Have you tried running "sfc /scannow" from an administrative command prompt?

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

 

After running the command, what does the result say?

 

Says "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations"

 

Hi,

 

What about resource usage? RAM usage through the night and free space on C drive?

Also - do you get any errors in event viewer during the night?

 

Try msconfig - diagnostic start-up to rule out weird application issue.

 

RAM usage through the night is pretty flat, sits at 8GB ish the whole time. Free space on C drive is 7.60GB out of 60GB. I'll give diagnostic start-up a go tonight.

[Captain_WD]

Says "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations"

 

 

RAM usage through the night is pretty flat, sits at 8GB ish the whole time. Free space on C drive is 7.60GB out of 60GB. I'll give diagnostic start-up a go tonight.

 

You could try cleaning up some files from C drive to free up some space. It is recommended that you have more free space as temp files could take up a lot of space. Try leaving at least 10GB free and see if the problem persists. Try disk clean up option or simply move some files/programs to other drives.

 

Captain_WD.

[Birdhunter]

I agree with previous poster(s): Looks more an issue with Windows, rather then Hardware.

Although I'm a little torn, you might wanna try CCleaner to clean your Drives and fix the registry. It helped me with some issues I had with random freezes, so It's worth a try, and a little bit cleaning after 2 years can't hurt.

[Unspec]

 

You could try cleaning up some files from C drive to free up some space. It is recommended that you have more free space as temp files could take up a lot of space. Try leaving at least 10GB free and see if the problem persists. Try disk clean up option or simply move some files/programs to other drives.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

I'll try freeing up more space.

 

I agree with previous poster(s): Looks more an issue with Windows, rather then Hardware.

Although I'm a little torn, you might wanna try CCleaner to clean your Drives and fix the registry. It helped me with some issues I had with random freezes, so It's worth a try, and a little bit cleaning after 2 years can't hurt.

 

Been using CCleaner to clean drives and registry.

 

 

Also, noticed something today. Crashed again to a normal blackscreen, but when I unplugged and replugging in my displayport monitor, my primary ViewSonic monitor thats running off of HDMI went to blackscreen with cursor, while the displayport monitor continued to receive no signal.

[badmax]

Well looks to me that time to re-install windows is about right

I work with 50k win servers - this looks to me like either memleak or low disk space issue. 

Free space - 10% on system drive is often enough to keep system properly running. I've also run 60GB SSD as my primary disk - had an issue with page file being set automatically adjust size - it took all free space ~16GB couple of times, system went semi-unresponsive with 0 bytes free. (explorer.exe and other programs can't run, task manager also weirds out).

 

Anyway, let's try - open cmd as admin and enter "powercfg -h off" (no quotes of-course) - this will disable hibernating mode on windows box and will disable hibernate file on C: drive which is 8-16GB in size.

Then page file - what configuration currently? http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001292.htm

it's not mandatory to have it active if you don't use more then 60-70% of total ram you have. I need one since only 8GB installed with static settings 4096-6144 on SSD. In the end would suggest to have it on the SSD with static settings and set it for 60-70% amount of RAM you have or just disable it and check how windows manages with running only on RAM.

 

What antivirus do you run and what takes 8GB of RAM during idle? Chrome ?

[Unspec]

Well looks to me that time to re-install windows is about right

I work with 50k win servers - this looks to me like either memleak or low disk space issue. 

Free space - 10% on system drive is often enough to keep system properly running. I've also run 60GB SSD as my primary disk - had an issue with page file being set automatically adjust size - it took all free space ~16GB couple of times, system went semi-unresponsive with 0 bytes free. (explorer.exe and other programs can't run, task manager also weirds out).

 

Anyway, let's try - open cmd as admin and enter "powercfg -h off" (no quotes of-course) - this will disable hibernating mode on windows box and will disable hibernate file on C: drive which is 8-16GB in size.

Then page file - what configuration currently? http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001292.htm

it's not mandatory to have it active if you don't use more then 60-70% of total ram you have. I need one since only 8GB installed with static settings 4096-6144 on SSD. In the end would suggest to have it on the SSD with static settings and set it for 60-70% amount of RAM you have or just disable it and check how windows manages with running only on RAM.

 

What antivirus do you run and what takes 8GB of RAM during idle? Chrome ?

 

Chrome and various other background programs. I have paging file moved to my harddrive, hibernating mode is already off. I use Avast and Malwarebytes.

 

 

So I just swapped in my roommate's GTX 780 last night and the computer didn't crash. May actually be my graphics card rather than windows.

 

Edit: So I let my computer sit over night again, but unplugged my displayport monitor. Didn't crash. Maybe its something to do with my second monitor.

[Captain_WD]

Chrome and various other background programs. I have paging file moved to my harddrive, hibernating mode is already off. I use Avast and Malwarebytes.

 

 

So I just swapped in my roommate's GTX 780 last night and the computer didn't crash. May actually be my graphics card rather than windows.

 

Edit: So I let my computer sit over night again, but unplugged my displayport monitor. Didn't crash. Maybe its something to do with my second monitor.

 

Try running the monitor on a different build. Maybe the monitor is causing the problems (electricity-wise on the PSU, driver-related, pure monitor problem, etc.).

Try also to run your card on your friend's computer to see if it crashes. You can narrow down the problem even more.

 

Captain_WD.

[Unspec]

 

Try running the monitor on a different build. Maybe the monitor is causing the problems (electricity-wise on the PSU, driver-related, pure monitor problem, etc.).

Try also to run your card on your friend's computer to see if it crashes. You can narrow down the problem even more.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Does seem to be an issue with either the physical displayport on the card, or the actual monitor. This is what was present this morning:

 

 

The secondary monitor:

 

Primary HDMI monitor was fine. Replugging in secondary monitor caused both monitors to crash to blackscreen with cursor

[Captain_WD]

Does seem to be an issue with either the physical displayport on the card, or the actual monitor. This is what was present this morning:

 

 

The secondary monitor:

 

Primary HDMI monitor was fine. Replugging in secondary monitor caused both monitors to crash to blackscreen with cursor

 

OK My guess is that either the monitor itself has a problem and you should test it separately as a single monitor on your build, another build or as a secondary monitor on another build or simply swap the two monitors and use the faulty one as a primary, or you have a problem with some of the applications. Here's an article that resolves similar problem: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/i-receive-an-error-code-0x80000003-with-an-error/de343bfa-e44e-4f0c-84f0-473b22454fff.

 

Have you checked your memory for any errors. It wouldn't hurt to do a mem-check.

 

Captain_WD. 

[Unspec]

 

OK My guess is that either the monitor itself has a problem and you should test it separately as a single monitor on your build, another build or as a secondary monitor on another build or simply swap the two monitors and use the faulty one as a primary, or you have a problem with some of the applications. Here's an article that resolves similar problem: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/i-receive-an-error-code-0x80000003-with-an-error/de343bfa-e44e-4f0c-84f0-473b22454fff.

 

Have you checked your memory for any errors. It wouldn't hurt to do a mem-check.

 

Captain_WD. 

 

 

Been a while, as I've been waiting for my card to come in. Upgraded video card to a 780 Ti, just got a crash but with this error. Haven't seen the black screen crash just yet,

 

[Captain_WD]

Been a while, as I've been waiting for my card to come in. Upgraded video card to a 780 Ti, just got a crash but with this error. Haven't seen the black screen crash just yet,

 

 

 

Did you do a clean install or you are still running the old OS from the previous crashes? 

Just in case run a check on all your storage devices. For the HDD I would recommend WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool. Run both the quick and the extended tests to check its S.M.A.R.T. status as well as for any potential bad sectors that might have occurred. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PLsn7R.

Is this error occurring while having both monitors plugged in? Does this happen when you try to access that particular application or simply pops it up?

 

Captain_WD.

[Unspec]

 

Did you do a clean install or you are still running the old OS from the previous crashes? 

Just in case run a check on all your storage devices. For the HDD I would recommend WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool. Run both the quick and the extended tests to check its S.M.A.R.T. status as well as for any potential bad sectors that might have occurred. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PLsn7R.

Is this error occurring while having both monitors plugged in? Does this happen when you try to access that particular application or simply pops it up?

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

I've ran the tests before and all my hard drives turned up clean. Happens when both monitors are plugged in. And it simply pops up on its own, accompanied by a system crash. Haven't had the time or means to reinstall windows, as I don't have a USB stick or a CD Drive.

[Captain_WD]

I've ran the tests before and all my hard drives turned up clean. Happens when both monitors are plugged in. And it simply pops up on its own, accompanied by a system crash. Haven't had the time or means to reinstall windows, as I don't have a USB stick or a CD Drive.

 

So it's all good if you use only one monitor? No matter which one? No matter in which spot it's plugged? 

Have you considered contacting the motherboard's manufacturer and ask their support for some help?

Maybe the two monitors are not compatible with each other somehow. Try using a third monitor with either of those. 

 

Captain_WD.

[Unspec]

 

So it's all good if you use only one monitor? No matter which one? No matter in which spot it's plugged? 

Have you considered contacting the motherboard's manufacturer and ask their support for some help?

Maybe the two monitors are not compatible with each other somehow. Try using a third monitor with either of those. 

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Don't have access to a third monitor. And I don't know if it crashes on only one monitor, I haven't yet tried to run only one monitor with the new video card yet.

 

Edit: Could is possibly be a bad displayport cable? A friend of mine suggested it may be the case and said there has been issues with DP cables that come with Dell monitors