Is this a GPU fault?

Luxzio22 · March 3, 2020

So my PC has been displaying strange behaviour as of late; and I think its a GPU issue. After some time of use (a few hours at first) my it restarts and there is no display output from the GPU. Ie the PC randomly restarts and it sounds like Windows is booting in the background but there isn't any display. This goes away when I switch off the PC and switch it on again, but after a lesser amount of time, it restarts again with the same issue. It goes on like this until I can only just reach the Windows lock screen before it restarts. I can only get video output without this issue if I use the PC infrequently (ie the more time I keep the PC off, the more time there is before this issue starts to appear).

I tried re-seating the GPU and while it seemed to fix it at first, the problem came back after a few days.

If I try booting without the GPU, I don't have this issue.

So is this some kind of strange cache issue? Or is the GPU turning off from overheating and my PC switching to the mobo's igpu?

Anyone have any idea? My rig: Gigabyte GA 78LMT Mobo, AMD FX6300, 4GB RAM, RX 550 and Win10 64-bit. Had this problem after I updated the GPU drivers too.

CPT_BEEMO · March 3, 2020

Way I see this when it comes to diagnosing your concern is that your CPU does not have integrated graphics, therefore a loss of display imho could be a GPU issue, or at least that is where I would look first. You could try a couple other things and see if it changes at all:

Revert back to an older GPU driver, and uninstall current drivers with DDU Display Driver Uninstaller.

Check and confirm your BIOS is up to date.

Install a known good GPU and see if the concern persists

There are plenty of ways to diagnose the concern, I know that Jayztwocents has some fantastic PC diagnostic videos and there are some steps you can apply to your case to see if anything changes.

Hope I wasnt just a talking head, and that this helps you!

Best of luck.

Luxzio22 · March 4, 2020

The mobo has an igpu, and hence a display output and from removing the GPU and using that, I know that the problem did not persist.

I did update the drivers from the previous version and still had the issue. I also did not begin having the issue after installing new drivers IIRC, because I update drivers so infrequently

Thanks for your advice, it indeed opened up possible areas of concern I did not consider. I'll look at my BIOS and also the videos, thanks for your help!