Noktr

Every time, yes. I think that's what's most infuriating about it. If it only crashed to desktop, it wouldn't be so frustrating. Back when I had blackscreens, the whole system would crash though, and I was forced to manually restart the PC in order to use it again. Monitor would lose signal while GPU fans would ramp up to full every single time. This also happened when I tried using testing softwares such as Heaven Benchmark and Furmark.
 
For a whole year, I tried everything you can find on the internet about this issue. It's hard for me to think of something that I haven't tried to fix it. I have:
Installed more than 10 different drivers, all while using DDU Tried different settings in Radeon Settings (specially regarding GPU Scaling) Tried different power settings in Windows Tried different settings in both Radeon Settings, MSI Afterburner and other tweaking softwares, regarding power limit, clocks and fan curves Bought a new 600W PSU Checked my PC fans to see if it was being cooled properly Checked my PC parts for loose connections Tried using my GPU in different motherboard slots Tried a different monitor Tried different HDMI and DVI HDMI cables Nothing worked, until I replaced the thermal paste. You can see in the pictures above how cheap the thermal paste applied by MSI looked. That's why the issue had grown more frequent with time. As time passed the thermal was just drying out to the point where the GPU couldn't handle high temperatures anymore (= gaming).
 
This issue, across different cards and brands, is tied to lack of power/high temperatures, I believe. The monitor loses signal because it's not receiving signal from the card anymore (duh :P), and the card stops sending signal to the monitor because it stops being powered by the PSU (or, at least, the power is cut just enough so the card can fully ramp up it's fans to decrease temperature). Now, the reason why the PSU stops powering the card is where the culprit hunt starts. I've seen it all. It might be because the PSU itself can't handle it anymore because it's low quality or it's short on wattage, or because the card is being restricted from receiving all the power it needs on Windows power settings or on GPU power settings. It might be because the driver is not handling it properly. It might be because there are loose connections on the monitor, GPU cables or PC parts. It might be because the GPU is reaching temperatures high enough for it to shut itself down as a failsafe measure, so it stops receiving power from the PSU to cease the temperature increase.
 
In my case, it was the last one. From the start, I thought it wasn't, because I hadn't seen my card reach insane temperatures, but as soon as I changed the thermal paste, the issue was gone for good. I'd suggest checking every solution as I listed, and if none have worked and you aren't aiming for a refund, buy a thermal paste, open your card and replace the thermal paste. As you have a MSI Gaming card, just like I do, it should look like this.
 

Just came back to this thread to say one thing: thank you. Thank you mack_50cal, really.
 
I'm a RX 480 MSI Gaming X 8GB user myself, and I had been doomed with the same black screen problem for almost one year. Started having this problem only one year after having bought the card actually, which is a joke. To be able to play games without having black screens, I had to manually decrease my GPU's performance in MSI Afterburner. I still had some black screens now and then though, they weren't really gone. These are my card's factory settings:

These are the settings I had to use for almost one year to be able to play games. I know. Pathetic:

I was about to give up, but I found your thread and I thought it was worth giving it a try before starting to save money again for a new GPU. 2 months ago, I've opened my card, and this is how it looked like:

I decided to buy a thermal paste (Coolermaster Mastergel Maker), opened my card, cleaned the old thermal paste off and applied the new one:

It's worth mentioning that I have also bought two new 120mm coolers for my PC tower. Now, 2 months after, I've been black screen free. Not once, at all. I'm also back to using my card's factory settings, so no need for MSI Afterburner either. Who would guess that a consumer would need to tear the purchased product open one year after because the thermal paste was either cheap or poorly applied... Well, at least it worked. I would advise anyone who's been facing this problem to give this a try before buying a new card. I'm not taking risks with AMD again next time I buy a new card either. I'll go Nvidia. But hey, that's me.
 
Just a sidenote: my card wasn't really overheating aswell, but OP's solution has worked for me anyway. I didn't notice my card going over it's target temps (which I think are 75 celcius degrees or something close to that) back when I was having blackscreens, but I cleaned it's old thermal paste off and applied the new one I bought and now the problem is gone.
 
 
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TL,DR:
OP's solution to change the card's thermal paste has worked for me. I had been having the black screen issue for almost one year, but I decided to open the card to see how it's thermal paste looked like and it did not look good. Bought a new thermal paste, cleaned the old paste off and applied the new one to the card. I've been using the card for 2 months now with no black screen at all. It is worth a shot!

Just came back to this thread to say one thing: thank you. Thank you mack_50cal, really.
 
I'm a RX 480 MSI Gaming X 8GB user myself, and I had been doomed with the same black screen problem for almost one year. Started having this problem only one year after having bought the card actually, which is a joke. To be able to play games without having black screens, I had to manually decrease my GPU's performance in MSI Afterburner. I still had some black screens now and then though, they weren't really gone. These are my card's factory settings:

These are the settings I had to use for almost one year to be able to play games. I know. Pathetic:

I was about to give up, but I found your thread and I thought it was worth giving it a try before starting to save money again for a new GPU. 2 months ago, I've opened my card, and this is how it looked like:

I decided to buy a thermal paste (Coolermaster Mastergel Maker), opened my card, cleaned the old thermal paste off and applied the new one:

It's worth mentioning that I have also bought two new 120mm coolers for my PC tower. Now, 2 months after, I've been black screen free. Not once, at all. I'm also back to using my card's factory settings, so no need for MSI Afterburner either. Who would guess that a consumer would need to tear the purchased product open one year after because the thermal paste was either cheap or poorly applied... Well, at least it worked. I would advise anyone who's been facing this problem to give this a try before buying a new card. I'm not taking risks with AMD again next time I buy a new card either. I'll go Nvidia. But hey, that's me.
 
Just a sidenote: my card wasn't really overheating aswell, but OP's solution has worked for me anyway. I didn't notice my card going over it's target temps (which I think are 75 celcius degrees or something close to that) back when I was having blackscreens, but I cleaned it's old thermal paste off and applied the new one I bought and now the problem is gone.
 
 
-
TL,DR:
OP's solution to change the card's thermal paste has worked for me. I had been having the black screen issue for almost one year, but I decided to open the card to see how it's thermal paste looked like and it did not look good. Bought a new thermal paste, cleaned the old paste off and applied the new one to the card. I've been using the card for 2 months now with no black screen at all. It is worth a shot!