Black/Grey Screen Crash

[AngryOcelot17]

I was given an ASRock Vega 56 Phantom Gaming X about a year ago, and ever since my system regularly but completely randomly will cut to black/grey screen (different per monitor) and then my system will shut down with my motherboard's CPU light on, and the GPU's fan making an odd noise where it spins up real fast and then stops and continues that loop until I force the system to shut down completely and restart. The system always boots into Windows just fine after. I've tried a new install of Windows, DDU several times, making sure everything is well cooled (nothing in my system goes over 65C). I'm not sure why my motherboard's CPU light would turn on after the crash, as I've found that downgrading to a GTX 970 gives absolutely no system crash. Forcing a minimum VRAM clock state in Wattman did not solve the issue, nor did downclocking the GPU to Vega 56's stock. My CPU and RAM are also at their stock frequencies and besides a CPU fan curve my motherboard BIOS is at all defaults. A friend of mine suggested maybe the BIOS on the GPU is corrupt, but I really don't want to have to flash the BIOS unless I have to.

 

This crash happens whether my system is at full load, or idling while I'm not even at it, completely random with seemingly no trigger. No information prior to crash of errors in EventViewer. No BSOD errors.

System Spec
Windows 10 Ed 64bit
Ryzen 5 2600 w/ Hyper 212 & Noctua fan
MSI B450-A Pro BIOS version 2.8

ASRock Vega 56 Phantom Gaming X stock blower cooler

GeIL 2x8gb 2133mhz
Corsair CX650m

(GPU PCI-E power served by 2 separate 8 pin connectors to the PSU)

[ShadowChaser]

Sounds like the GPU may be the root of the issue if swapping in a different card eliminates your problem. Have you been able to test this same gpu in a different system at all? If the problem goes with the card then that's your problem I presume.

I'd personally make sure that the gpu is causing these issues before reflashing the bios for sure.

[AngryOcelot17]

6 hours ago, ShadowChaser said:

Sounds like the GPU may be the root of the issue if swapping in a different card eliminates your problem. Have you been able to test this same gpu in a different system at all? If the problem goes with the card then that's your problem I presume.

I'd personally make sure that the gpu is causing these issues before reflashing the bios for sure.

I have another system but I don't know if the PSU has enough juice for it. It's a 500w, can't remember brand, Rosewill I think, with a 2200g

[ShadowChaser]

it'll be enough, just don't stress the gpu too much and you'll be below 500W for sure  

[AngryOcelot17]

15 hours ago, ShadowChaser said:

it'll be enough, just don't stress the gpu too much and you'll be below 500W for sure  

I put it in the other PC and ran it during a 3 hour stream (I can never make it past 2 hours before it crashes on my main rig no matter the game) playing Fallout 3. So I guess tomorrow I'm going to switch the PSUs and see if it crashes again in my main rig, but it looks like the PSU I guess.

[AngryOcelot17]

Didn't get a chance to switch the PSUs until today. I think I found the problem though....I found another PSU from my old old rig that I was gonna try and use, unfortunately I couldn't find all the cables, so I tried using the ones that I already had in the system but they unfortunately did not fit in the old PSU...but then I noticed something, the back of my current PSU doesn't have 2x8 pin PCI-E power ports...only one...it turns out I was putting the 2nd 8 pin into the extra 8 pin CPU it has for some reason...I'm thinking that was my issue the entire time. The PSU I use now is only semi modular and the CPU power cable is built in so I don't know why it would need another 8 pin connector.

 

Sorry for low quality, my phone's camera is kinda garbage.

[AngryOcelot17]

Super late update, the problem persists but I have discovered the issue based on a theory from a friend. I put my R5 2600 and Vega 56 in the other PC I have and did some testing and benchmarking. None of the errors occured and performance was significantly better between CPU and GPU. I do not think it was the PSU anymore, rather the motherboard. The PSU in the other PC is far lower quality and wattage than what is in my main rig.