Black Screen Flashes While Gaming with USB Sound & CPU Spikes

[DSP]

Hi guys,

 

I've been having 1 or 2 second black screens while gaming for a few months now and this has been driving me insane. Essentially the screen randomly flashes black while I'm gaming (or if I have a game open in the background) and in most cases, I often hear a USB/device disconnect sound (not always) when this happens. This is momentary and the picture comes back within 1 or 2 seconds max and I can continue where I left off. I've been searching for answers and have checked a number of things which I'll share below along with my specs. The issue seems to happen mostly with games like Sekiro, Call of Duty (MW) and GTA V. It doesn't happen as often with less intensive games like World of Warcraft, but I have had a few flickers with WoW too. 

 

I play in 1440p, refresh rate of monitor is 60Hz. Temperatures while gaming with max/high settings on CoD are around 50-60C CPU, 70-76C GPU with ~75-95% GPU use in game. One thing I recently noticed is that when the screen flashes black momentarily, CPU use spikes to 100% each and every time, feels like that should be a useful hint as to the root cause of the issue but I can't pin it down. Apart from that, CPU usage typically varies from 50-80% with CoD. Ram usage around 65-75% most of the time. Important to note the issue only seems to occur while gaming or when I have a game in the background. Cinebench doesn't seem to cause the flickering, but it does occur with Heaven.

 

Specs: 

Mobo: MSI B450M Mortar

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 (not OC'd)

GPU: MSI RTX 2070 Super Ventus OC 8GB GDDR6

RAM: HyperX Predator DDR4 3200MHz CL16 16GB Kit (2x8GB) - XMP Profile 1

PSU: Corsair RM 850 W 80+ Gold Fully Modular ATX PSU

Storage: WD SN750 1TB NVMe SSD with Heatsink

OS: Windows 10 64-bit

 

What I've Tried So Far

- Checking all cables, ensuring GPU is seated properly

- Running games on all settings from lowest to the highest, as well as trying 1080p again from lowest to highest settings

- Running games in windowed & other modes.

- Playing around with various settings including VSync, MSAA, FXAA, DirectX Raytracing etc

- Running games without MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, Avast, Chrome etc in the background

- Checking Event Viewer for errors etc (none found)

- Updating, clearing & reinstalling graphics drivers multiple times, uninstalling and reinstalling related software such as NVIDIA Control Panel & GeForce Experience

- Running games with and without NVIDIA GeForce Experience optimal settings and testing with NVIDIA Control Panel Quality, Balanced and Performance settings 

- Trying Ryzen Balanced, High Performance plans as well as Windows' Balanced & High Performance plans

- Updating BIOS

- Testing memory & CHKDSK

- Turning off power saving type features in Windows & BIOS

 

For context, there are a number of apps in the background that may or may not be relevant here, including Logitech G Hub, NZXT's CAM Software (RGB + Fan Control), RivaTuner, MSI Afterburner. AIDA 64 & NVIDIA Control Panel. I've probably tried a number of other things too but those listed above are the most important ones off the top of my head. 

 

If I've missed anything let me know, I'll be happy to provide more info if needed. If you have any idea what might be going on and how I can resolve this, I'd really appreciate your help

 

Cheers in advance

 

[DSP]

Bump

[DSP]

Update: I've tried uninstalling G Hub, NZXT CAM and others and running. Issue ongoing. I also wanted to monitor task manager for a bit to try and spot what application might be causing the CPU spikes which seem to lead to the black screens. I see Windows Audio Endpoint Builder coming up and hogging a fair bit of CPU when a black screen occurs. Tried restarting the service and changing the details on the Log On tab as well as uninstalling & reinstalling sound drivers but still no luck. Anyone have any ideas as to how Audio Endpoint Builder might be linked to the issue?