A mysterious problem (screen blackouts)

Nyarurin · August 5, 2017

(Sorry for broken english - it is not my native)

I wonder if anyone can help me to identify this problem.
So just out of nowhere my display started to blackout while playing Fallout 4. It is like if it shuts down for a second and then turns itself on back again.
At first it happend a few times almost seemingly randomly but then i figure out a pattern. It very very rarelly does it at day time (in game) but much more often - after sunset. I happend to find a place in game where i can reproduce this problem very reliably and made a save there for my future tests.
I can load that save wait the initial 5-10 minutes and then my screen will start to go black with an intervals of 20 to 50 seconds (based on other conditions).
I tried to update and reinstall the gpu drivers. Diffirent versions of drivers seemed to make some minor changes to the intervals at which the screen blackouts but it did not resolve the problem.
At first it was doing that only in Fallout 4, but as the time went on it begin to appear in another game i am playing atm - Blade & Soul. In B&S screen blackouts in 2 dungeon so far - Cold storage and Naryu foundry.
Also a few days earlyer my PSU (Seasonic X760) died - the system would not boot and would rebooting itself endlessly before ever even get to the POST. So i thought that it was all because of my dying PSU - so i bought a new one. With it my system booted without any problems BUT the problem of my screen going black - remained.
If you think that it is a display/cable problem then why would it only appear at some very specific conditions?
I also tried to stick my old GPU (gtx660ti) instead of current gtx1060 - and the problem is still there. Only the intervals got longer. So i doubt it is the GPU fault.
I am almost out of ideas. So maybe someone has their expirience with a simmilar problem or they knew what i don't.

Some more random info
- My system was warking stable in this two games for at least half of a year after the last hardware/software update. And there was no changes to those before the problem appeared. (i do not install any updates when everything is working fine)
- I am using Windows 7.
- There is no overheating on the GPU - i tried to do this test while turn the fans on high speed and the problem occured when my gpu was only 38 celsius hot.
- If i record gameplay with shadowplay - the recording was fine and there was no FPS drop or any glitches on it at those moments when the screens went black on my display.
- I tried to burn the GPU with furmark for an hour. No glitches or blackouts during the test.

- Lowering the game resolution will make blackouts less often.

zMeul · August 5, 2017

it's a TDR event - Windows is resetting the video drivers

and since you said the previous PSU died ...

new PSU is fucked
that old PSU also fucked something else, probably mobo

Nyarurin · August 5, 2017

2 hours ago, zMeul said:

it's a TDR event - Windows is resetting the video drivers

But there is no message that drivers were restored (like as usually when drivers crash). And there is no stutter on the recording via shadowplay. Doesn't it contradicts this theory?

2 hours ago, zMeul said:

new PSU is fucked

that old PSU also fucked something else, probably mobo

Is there a chance to repair the MB in that case? I am low on money and i don't want to reinstall all the software because of the new MB.

zMeul · August 6, 2017

16 hours ago, Nyarurin said:

But there is no message that drivers were restored (like as usually when drivers crash). And there is no stutter on the recording via shadowplay. Doesn't it contradicts this theory?

you can check the event viewer to be absolutely sure it's not a TDR event

one other thing you could do is to use TDR Manipulator to disable TDRs completely and see how the system behaves

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=755&sid=c5c9b005d50ad2f18b819597eaf73de9

Nyarurin · August 6, 2017

On 06.08.2017 at 11:56 AM, zMeul said:

you can check the event viewer to be absolutely sure it's not a TDR event

one other thing you could do is to use TDR Manipulator to disable TDRs completely and see how the system behaves

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=755&sid=c5c9b005d50ad2f18b819597eaf73de9

So i disabled TDRs (rebooted and checked that it is disabled) but the blackouts did not stop.

I also checked the windows stability journal and there was nothing particular - just igfxcuiservice "has stop working" error that has been occurring from the day i build the system 2.5 years ago. The only peculiar thing about it is that if a week ago it was named in the journal as "igfxcuiservice.exe" then after i reinstall the driver for the last time it suddenly changed to "igfxcuiservice module" error. My problem is a month old so it is probably irrelevant to it, just strange.

-----------update: it was my monitor after all.