BLACK SCREEN GPU FANS AT FULL SPEED CRASH [FIXED]

[mack_50cal]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!! I have been dealing with this for over 9 months with a BRAND NEW system I built following all of Linus Tech Tips videos. The system would just randomly crash from loading a game, all the way to being in the middle of a game and it crashes. I wasn't even playing graphically intensive games either! I had heard that it could be GPU, CPU, Motherboard, PSU, ... etc. I double checked everything in my PC... and I mean everything. I was 100% sure the GPU was fried and it was too late to return it. I had to swallow the pill of buying a new card in the middle of this bitcoin crap at the super high prices! It was about 2am my time and I was going to order the new card the next day when I decided to look for a fix. One. Last. Time. I found a very old thread, link below, that a guy was having the same issues. He did the exact same things I did and then some. He finally resorted to pulling the graphics card and taking apart and looking at it to see if there was anything noticeable. That's where the problem was!!!! The CHEAP way some of these cards are made, was causing this issue. More specifically, there was little to no thermal compound on the actual GPU, it was all on the board on the side of it. He cleaned it off, put it back together, and ..... Viola!! It ran fine! I did the same thing, also with the help of some of Linus' videos, and it fixed mine as well!! Just to note I'm running a Red Devil Radeon RX 480, so this is not a cheap card but also not a super high end card either. Hope this helps somebody save a little bit of money and not throw out their card when its just poor assembly. All credit goes to the guy that started the post in the link, without him I would not have figured it out.

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/660409/screen-goes-black-and-gpu-fan-goes-to-max-speed-monitor-enters-powersaving-mode/

 

[Spencer.-]

Hi

 

I am having the same problem. But i dont notice any overheating.

 

Was your card overheating?

[Noktr]

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.

 

On 05/09/2018 at 2:04 AM, Spencer.- said:

Hi

 

I am having the same problem. But i dont notice any overheating.

 

Was your card overheating?

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!

[ChaoticPhoenix]

Did either of your systems hard-lock when the black screen occured? I'm having a very similar issue with my MSI GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X. Middle of a game, black screen and GPU fans ramp up to full. System won't shut down without me flicking the power switch on the back of the PSU.

[Noktr]

3 hours ago, ChaoticPhoenix said:

Did either of your systems hard-lock when the black screen occured? I'm having a very similar issue with my MSI GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X. Middle of a game, black screen and GPU fans ramp up to full. System won't shut down without me flicking the power switch on the back of the PSU.

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.

 

[mack_50cal]

On 9/5/2018 at 12:04 AM, Spencer.- said:

Hi

 

I am having the same problem. But i dont notice any overheating.

 

Was your card overheating?

It wont show that it is overheating but i know it had to be overheating. i think the temp would spike too fast and cause the crash personally but im not 100% sure on that

[mack_50cal]

13 hours ago, Noktr said:

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.

 

I agree with Noktr 100%. I had this issue and i went through countless web sites and everyone would say either bad MoBo or bad PSU. my system would always do a hard crash, like i had to either hold the power button down until it turned off or in some severe cases pull the plug all together. in the future i will be checking that thermal compound first after the warranty is up, who knows how many other cards were made poorly

[kesh27]

On 2/19/2018 at 12:38 PM, mack_50cal said:

I FIGURED IT OUT!!! I have been dealing with this for over 9 months with a BRAND NEW system I built following all of Linus Tech Tips videos. The system would just randomly crash from loading a game, all the way to being in the middle of a game and it crashes. I wasn't even playing graphically intensive games either! I had heard that it could be GPU, CPU, Motherboard, PSU, ... etc. I double checked everything in my PC... and I mean everything. I was 100% sure the GPU was fried and it was too late to return it. I had to swallow the pill of buying a new card in the middle of this bitcoin crap at the super high prices! It was about 2am my time and I was going to order the new card the next day when I decided to look for a fix. One. Last. Time. I found a very old thread, link below, that a guy was having the same issues. He did the exact same things I did and then some. He finally resorted to pulling the graphics card and taking apart and looking at it to see if there was anything noticeable. That's where the problem was!!!! The CHEAP way some of these cards are made, was causing this issue. More specifically, there was little to no thermal compound on the actual GPU, it was all on the board on the side of it. He cleaned it off, put it back together, and ..... Viola!! It ran fine! I did the same thing, also with the help of some of Linus' videos, and it fixed mine as well!! Just to note I'm running a Red Devil Radeon RX 480, so this is not a cheap card but also not a super high end card either. Hope this helps somebody save a little bit of money and not throw out their card when its just poor assembly. All credit goes to the guy that started the post in the link, without him I would not have figured it out.

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/660409/screen-goes-black-and-gpu-fan-goes-to-max-speed-monitor-enters-powersaving-mode/

 

[UPDATE : MARCH 2019]

I just came here to say thank you!! I saw this thread on Nov 2018 and it fixed my issue with the RX480 Gaming X.

I have been using an MSI RX480 Gaming X 4GB since Oct 15, 2016(till today).

It has always been at high temps since i got it even with the fans on while gaming.. The fans were always running at 85 to 100% fan speed while gaming.

Last year around mid-November 2018 anytime i would open up a game/gpu bench i would suddenly get a black screen, gpu fans goes direcly to 100% and couldn't to anything besides force shut down.

I opened the gpu and to my surprise the thermalpaste was harden and also had a bad application.

I replaced it with Arctic Silver 5 and it was a night and day difference! PC stopped crashing and even while gaming for a long period of time, my pc would stay relatively cooler compared to before and fans doesn't run at high rpm anymore.. Till today March 2019 everything's running great.. Gpu max out at 70-73 now compares to before where it would reach 85-88. kudos legend.

[Jinx0078]

Hey.

 

Thanks for this thread, however this did not fix the issue for me. It did however lengthen the time between crashes and can believe that in some cases it would definitely work.

I have picked up another thread about this where the problem was solved by replacing the PSU.

 

I am still troubleshooting the problem and will report any progress

 

Thank you.

 

EDIT: So with the persisting problem after new decent thermal paste was applied, I reinstalled older drivers(cd came with my card) and when I needed to restart my pc after install, i shut it down and checked my cables again. I then found that my Molex to 8 pin converter wasn't properly connected and one of the pins got pushed out causing the card to not get enough power(i guess). So either that or the roll back to older drivers seems to have fixed it for me. 

[AdrianG]

Hey,

 

Same as Jinx.

I was having the same issue and, let's say that mostly, was due to the thermal paste.

The real issue was that a moth corroded the heatsink & some components but I found out cause I followed the OP's advice so thanks very much mate.

 

Cheers.

 

PS: Here's the full story 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1053256-corroded-vega64-what-are-these-components/

 

[ParisDyre]

I have had this problem too: playing games (WoT, Seige) and screen going blank and CPU/GPU fans going into turbo mode.  Bought a PC from Best Buy third party: Advanced Skyline Technology Ltd.  I got what seemed to be a solid gaming computer: 

HP Z230 GAMING SFF WS,Intel Core I7-4790,16G RAM,120G SSD+2TB,DVD-RW,GTX 1050 TI 4G,WIFI,BT 4.2,WIN10 (EN/FR)-Refurbished

It's basically an office workstation with a big graphics card and a beefy i7 core.

The problem ended up being that the motherboard and power source were not capable of handling the power demand from the CPU and GPU.  I ended up having temperatures of CPU idling at 90 and GPU at 90 under load (using stress test from GPU-Z).  I replaced the thermal paste on the GPU but still had CPU temp resting too high.  It turned out that I needed a bigger power source and motherboard to accommodate the increased power load.  My local shop replaced the power supply (400w) and motherboard and now I have normal performance from my PC (CPU temp at 35-40 and GPU at 65 under load).  The guy who fixed my computer initially believed my graphics card (GeForce GTX 1050 Ti ; single fan) was bum but it turned out to be okay.  Don't think this applies to most people's issue but wanted to share to explain that it's a reason for the symptoms.

 

The  OP was the most useful post for this issue.  Thanks for sharing.

[Ark82]

After a few years, suddenly, I started having issues with my RX 480, sometimes a black screen and sometimes a frozen screen. regardless of what happens I have to force shutdown my system. The usage of my GPU was spiking with out any signs of overheating. I tried everything I could think of and everything I found on the internet  and nothing has worked. on friday I finally gave up and order a replacement GPU (gtx 1660) . 

And today I  find this thread.... I open up my GPU and the thermal paste looks a lot like the ones on the pictures here. I will buy some thermal paste tomorrow and see what happens (if it works I'm going to scream).

[kesh27]

5 hours ago, Ark82 said:

After a few years, suddenly, I started having issues with my RX 480, sometimes a black screen and sometimes a frozen screen. regardless of what happens I have to force shutdown my system. The usage of my GPU was spiking with out any signs of overheating. I tried everything I could think of and everything I found on the internet  and nothing has worked. on friday I finally gave up and order a replacement GPU (gtx 1660) . 

And today I  find this thread.... I open up my GPU and the thermal paste looks a lot like the ones on the pictures here. I will buy some thermal paste tomorrow and see what happens (if it works I'm going to scream).

Hopefully it works for you..Changed mine in Nov 2018 and it's still working like a charm till today..

[kesh27]

On 3/14/2019 at 6:22 PM, kesh27 said:

[UPDATE : MARCH 2019]

I just came here to say thank you!! I saw this thread on Nov 2018 and it fixed my issue with the RX480 Gaming X.

I have been using an MSI RX480 Gaming X 4GB since Oct 15, 2016(till today).

It has always been at high temps since i got it even with the fans on while gaming.. The fans were always running at 85 to 100% fan speed while gaming.

Last year around mid-November 2018 anytime i would open up a game/gpu bench i would suddenly get a black screen, gpu fans goes direcly to 100% and couldn't to anything besides force shut down.

I opened the gpu and to my surprise the thermalpaste was harden and also had a bad application.

I replaced it with Arctic Silver 5 and it was a night and day difference! PC stopped crashing and even while gaming for a long period of time, my pc would stay relatively cooler compared to before and fans doesn't run at high rpm anymore.. Till today March 2019 everything's running great.. Gpu max out at 70-73 now compares to before where it would reach 85-88. kudos legend.

[UPDATE JULY 2019]

Still working as a charm.  Temps are normal and i haven't got any issues since i changed it back in Nov 2018. 

[Nickyguld]

I have had this problem with my new system as well!! I was about to buy new PSU and GPU and CPU Cooler (because I thought it was that.) This is probably it!

 

I have the GeForce 1060 6GB MSI version!

 

I'm gonna check the paste on it. If that's the issue I wan't to kiss you! Finally a possible solution! xD

[Nickyguld]

well.... changed the paste, didn't do any changes for me. Same issue.

 

I'm gonna change the PSU to a bigger one (it's a 750W so shouldn't really be that) if that isn't working I'm going to change the GPU

[gamma032]

I experienced two MSI RX480's bought together, put in different systems, that started experiencing this problem at about the same time. In a high-intensity event, for example when loading up a game, a car blowing up in-game or running a GPU benchmark, I would lose video output and be forced to restart the computer manually.

 

We replaced the paste on both with MX-4 thermal compound and have had two months without any issues. I think the paste dried up.

 

Here is a step-by-step for anyone with the same issue:

1. Remove the GPU from your system.
2. Unscrew both the four inner screws and the backplate screws. Use a small screwdriver and punch through the warranty sticker before twisting.
3. Remove the backplate.
4. Flip the card over and remove one of the two sets of cables that are holding it together. This takes some serious pinching.
5. Dip a lint-free cloth in isopropyl alcohol and clean both the die and the cooler.
6. Apply a new thermal compound onto the die. I used an X pattern.
7. Put the plug back, line up the pins and rescrew the card.
8. Throw the card back into your system. Don't forget the PCIe cable.

Thank so much for this thread!

 

One of the GPU dies as it appeared when I opened it.

[Subgenius]

Godspeed you OP!

I ducking love you!

Created an account just to thank you.

I've been dealing with this for over an year, it was super annoying but I could always tweak things so that it would work poorly but work nonetheless.

But earlier today I tried watching a video on YouTube (1080p 60fps) and the whole black-screen lock with the fans going at max speed happened again.

It's summer over here and it's pretty hot but still, it was just a video. Proceeded to open the case and clean it, thinking there could be cat hair clogging some fan/heat-sink.

Try to play the same video, fans go louder and louder and once again, around 15 seconds in, it locks.

Thinking this isn't normal and someone has had to experience the same problem before I google it once again but this time, I find this thread and decide to crack open my MSI Radeon R9 290X to check and lo and behold, besides the insane amount of dirt that was behind the plastic, all of the thermal paste was rock solid and most of it was on the board.

Cleaned the whole thing, applied new paste and it feels like I have a new rig.

I could watch that video without my fans going mad.

Launched Path of Exile (most GPU intensive game I have) and it ran at stable 60 fps with low fan speeds.

And most importantly, I turned GPU acceleration back on in Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects (with which I work every day) and everything works flawlessly and quietly. No more subpar workflow.

So thank you, thank you, thank you!

In retrospective, cracking the GPU open and taking a look inside was the obvious thing to do but it never occurred to me before.

 

 

[CrazyLadd]

Im having the exact same problem with a rx 570 4gb im worried to try this as i cant afford to replace it so are certain it works. replacing gpu thermal paste is the only thing i havent done before 

[Shizu]

Im having too this problem totay i change the thermal paste but don't make any changes pls help

 

[PoisonDaddy]

i have this problem aswell but the thing i gotta add is that i can still hear the game i can even hear spotify or youtube playing but when i click, alt tab, etc..nothing happens it just stay in no display and sound playing but nothing happens, have to force shutdown. gpu temp is not high it doesnt even go to 75C, but when the first time this  happened i opened the gpu it was full of dust so i cleaned and i noticed the paste was dry but i just when yolo (if the softwares says the temp is ok then it mustn't be overheat but ill check it out and buy a thermal paste).

 

"did anyone also had this problem but sound still running"?

[DragonslaiaR]

Same issue for me as well, I hope this fix works! Now to learn how to take apart my gtx 1080.....

[DragonslaiaR]

On 2/4/2020 at 7:09 PM, PoisonDaddy said:

i have this problem aswell but the thing i gotta add is that i can still hear the game i can even hear spotify or youtube playing but when i click, alt tab, etc..nothing happens it just stay in no display and sound playing but nothing happens, have to force shutdown. gpu temp is not high it doesnt even go to 75C, but when the first time this  happened i opened the gpu it was full of dust so i cleaned and i noticed the paste was dry but i just when yolo (if the softwares says the temp is ok then it mustn't be overheat but ill check it out and buy a thermal paste).

 

"did anyone also had this problem but sound still running"?

YES

[PoisonDaddy]

17 hours ago, DragonslaiaR said:

Same issue for me as well, I hope this fix works! Now to learn how to take apart my gtx 1080.....

where you able to fix it?

[D.B.Mort]

Having the same issue as well, temperature alarm goes off after a short time forcing me to turn off the power at the socket as it won't shut down otherwise. It happened once a couple of months ago, then again recently but 3 times over the last 3 days, I just installed an M2 and I am worried that made the problem worse somehow. Debating trying to return the GPU since i have only had it for 3 months, but first I am going to try a fresh windows install. I have also re-seated the GPU and made sure the power connectors were in properly.

 

Ok well that didn't work.