Hello everybody, this is my first time posting so forgive me if I miss out anything important. I roughly about 7 months ago bought a PC for myself to help with some Photography I was doing, PC worked like a charm, had no issues just thought that it was not very good for gaming etc. As my Birthday was coming up I decided to upgrade my PC abit with a new Graphics Card, new case, SSD etc. I will put the links below to all the hardware I bought and the old hardware in the PC.
My old specs were:
I7 6700k 3.4Ghz
Gigabyte H170-D3H
16GB (2x8gb) Corsair Vengeance 2400Mhz
500W Intergrator PSU
Nvidia GTX 950
Windows 10 64 bit
With that setup, the only issues I ever had was a flickering screen, it only happened once a week maybe and didn't really bother me enough to need to fix it.
As for upgrades, I did it in two sets, mainly because I didn't have enough money to upgrade all at once.
First:
Upgraded the case to a Corsair Spec 03
Added a 212 Evo cooler to the CPU
Added a 750W Corsair Bronze Power Supply
500GB Samsung SSD, still have the old 1TB HDD, just being used as storage
I add two front LED Fans blowing air in to the case and 2 exhaust fans, 1 blowing air out from the back and one from the tap (would add a second fan to the top but the CPU power to motherboard blocks it
I did all of that and then powered up my PC and it worked just as good as it did the first time, obviously ten times faster with SSD. Did all my normal stuff, movies, downloads, Lightroom, Premier Pro and general web browsing. I had absolutely no issues what so ever.
Two days later I had enough money in two buy a new graphics card, as I am not planning on 4k anytime soon and I am not a hardcore gamer, I opted to go for the MSI Armor 1080 (Black and White) and managed to pick one up below for £500 on Amazon, it arrived on the third day and the first thing I did was fit the new Graphics Card (I used DDU to remove all the old driver before putting in the 1080).
The 1080 fit in fine, in fact, its still in my PC right now as I type this. I plugged in the 6 pin and 8 pin, power the baby up and VOILA, I had a screen!
I installed the latest drivers and the first thing I did was boot up Battlefield 1 at Ultra Settings... about 10 minutes in I blackscreened... I could still here things going on in the background but had no control over the screen. I hard reset my PC and when it turned back on it kept power cycling.. on and off on and off before I switched it off at the plug and on again to make it start working normally.
Weirdly enough, the PC booted up like nothing happened? I tested it out a few more times and the same thing kept on happening.. After several tries and some googling, I installed CAM and MSI Afterburner to monitor my GPU in case it was overheating. Booted up Battlefield 1 again and my GPU barely hit 55, CPU barely got to 45 and it blackscreened again? There is no specific point in the game it blackscreens but according to CAM and the sound of the GPU, the GPU reaches 100% usage, the fans spin at max speed and then boom, it blackscreens. I tested out Far Cry 4 at max settings and the game again, random moment loading or on the first level, it just blackscreened as soon as the GPU hit 100% use.
At this point I was quite concerned because, well... £500 it a lot of damn money. I downloaded FurMark (used the 1080P test) and the same thing happened, all though I couldn't have CAM open, I heard the fans spin at 100% and it blackscreened.
I DDU all the drivers again, reinstalled them and still the same thing, I unplugged everything and plugged it back in, same thing. I tried using different PCI power cables as the power supply has 4 and the same thing happens?
At this point, I honestly have no idea what to try? Amazon has sent me a replacement for free but I missed the delivery twice now so it is just a matter of if and when I get it but I am just concerned it may be a different issue.
As all this happened two days ago on Sunday, Monday I did the tests again and the same thing happened but weirdly today (Tuesday), I powered on the PC and nothing came on the screen, I turned it off and on and it got to the windows load screen before I had that weird Green, White and Purpley static screen thing in a small line across the top of my screen. I switched it on and off again and its working like a charm now, has been running for 6 and a half hour with out an issue. I I haven't done anything intense on Tuesday but after 6+ hours of use my CPU is at 25 Degrees Celcius and my GPU is at 35 Degrees Celcius, so I am positive its not an overheating issue.
The screen I am using is a HP 24er monitor that is less then 3 months old so I know that's not faulty. I plugged in my old 950GTX and it worked flawlessly so I know it cant be the motherboard.
Does anyone else have any suggestions or ideas on what the hell it might have been?! or was it most likely just a faulty graphics card? I spoke to Amazon and the guys over at Gladiator PCs who originally did my PC for me and they said from everything I have said, it seems most likely the Graphics Card is faulty. I contacted MSI but as I expected, have had no response. I just don't want to get my hopes up for the replacement and start having the same issues when something else may be at fault.
New stuff:
Graphics Card: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GELBPGG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Fans X5: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00F6S0XJO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
SSD: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00P73B1E4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00J63LFTW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
PSU: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008RJZR40/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
CPU Cooler: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01KBXKP8W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Old Stuff:
Graphics Card: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-NVIDIA-GeForce-Express-Graphics-x/dp/B01MG1MP73/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1502235883&sr=1-1&keywords=gtx+950
CPU: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Quad-Core-i7-6700-3-4GHz-Processor/dp/B0136JONG8/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1502235924&sr=1-2&keywords=i7+6700
MotherBoard: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GA-H170M-D3H-S1151-USB3-0-Mainboard/dp/B012N6LM1Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1502235950&sr=1-1&keywords=gigabyte+h170m
PSU: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aerocool-Integrator-500W-Power-Supply/dp/B00JKVHKSU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502235989&sr=8-1&keywords=integrator+500
RAM: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMK16GX4M2A2400C16-Vengeance-Performance-Desktop/dp/B017NW5NZY/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1502236023&sr=1-3&keywords=corsair+vengeance+16gb
Case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermaltake-Versa-Tower-Window-Interior-x/dp/B00JQCZD2S/ref=sr_1_11?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1502236054&sr=1-11&keywords=thermaltake
Monitor: http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=T3M80AA&opt=ABU&sel=MTO
