Games are giving me black screen flickering - GPU dying?

[laushik]

Yesterday, right before I started my gaming session, my windows automatically updated and after that I tried to play games. However, when I launched rocket league I got rainbow colored screen tears across my screen and every 3 seconds my screen would go black for a moment and then return to normal. The black screen flickering occured in GTA V as well; also, it is both of my monitors that are flickering. I then thought it was the automatic windows update that was causing the issues, so I uninstalled the updates, but then that caused major issues with booting up and restarting, so I completely reformatted/reset windows. This fixed the restarting freezing/issues, but did not make any difference to the flickering. I then used DDU to remove the old drivers and installed brand new drivers - this didn't fix it either. I also dusted my pc and that did not fix it either. I'm not overclocked or anything. I ran a benchmark on unigne valley and somehow did not notice any issues. Is my gpu dying? How could a 4 yr old GPU die so quick?? Pls help.

 

I built the PC in 2016: 

 

System

• CPU
  I7 6700K
• Motherboard
  ASUS PRIME Z270-A
• RAM
  GSKILL RIPJAWS V DDR4 16GB 3000MHZ
• GPU
  MSI GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G
• Case
  NZXT S340 RED
• Storage
  WD 1TB BLUE AND SAMSUNG EVO 250GB SSD
• PSU
  EVGA 650W GQ
• Display(s)
  LG 25UM58-P ULTRAWIDE and LG 29UMP58-P ULTRAWIDE
• Cooling
  CORSAIR H100I GTX
• Keyboard
  CORSAIR K70
• Mouse
  LOGITECH G502
• Sound
  ASTRO A40
• Operating System
  Windows 10 PRO

 

[Tigerleon]

5 minutes ago, laushik said:

Yesterday, right before I started my gaming session, my windows automatically updated and after that I tried to play games. However, when I launched rocket league I got rainbow colored screen tears across my screen and every 3 seconds my screen would go black for a moment and then return to normal. The black screen flickering occured in GTA V as well; also, it is both of my monitors that are flickering. I then thought it was the automatic windows update that was causing the issues, so I uninstalled the updates, but then that caused major issues with booting up and restarting, so I completely reformatted/reset windows. This fixed the restarting freezing/issues, but did not make any difference to the flickering. I then used DDU to remove the old drivers and installed brand new drivers - this didn't fix it either. I also dusted my pc and that did not fix it either. I'm not overclocked or anything. I ran a benchmark on unigne valley and somehow did not notice any issues. Is my gpu dying? How could a 4 yr old GPU die so quick?? Pls help.

 

I built the PC in 2016: 

 

System

• CPU
  I7 6700K
• Motherboard
  ASUS PRIME Z270-A
• RAM
  GSKILL RIPJAWS V DDR4 16GB 3000MHZ
• GPU
  MSI GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G
• Case
  NZXT S340 RED
• Storage
  WD 1TB BLUE AND SAMSUNG EVO 250GB SSD
• PSU
  EVGA 650W GQ
• Display(s)
  LG 25UM58-P ULTRAWIDE and LG 29UMP58-P ULTRAWIDE
• Cooling
  CORSAIR H100I GTX
• Keyboard
  CORSAIR K70
• Mouse
  LOGITECH G502
• Sound
  ASTRO A40
• Operating System
  Windows 10 PRO

 

Maybe something with the psu? Or could be cable or something. It could even be the monitor maybe? I am not 100% sure.

[keik]

My GPU does same from time to time, especially if the screen went sleeping after inactivity. 
Try over and underclocking GPU to see if it happens and check temperatures.

[Arcanekitten]

Up the power limit a bit and underclock it a bit as @keik said. If that doesn't solve it are you on analog connectors to your monitor? Could be one of those cables going bad. Also check if it isn't the monitor going bad. My monitor recently also had artifacting but only my main monitor. Same issues as a GPU would have.

[laushik]

19 minutes ago, Arcanekitten said:

Up the power limit a bit and underclock it a bit as @keik said. If that doesn't solve it are you on analog connectors to your monitor? Could be one of those cables going bad. Also check if it isn't the monitor going bad. My monitor recently also had artifacting but only my main monitor. Same issues as a GPU would have.

I will try the power limit thing. My main monitor is HDMI and my second monitor is connected via an hdmi to display port wire. I highly doubt both of my monitors are going bad and I tested the games on each monitor (with the other one unplugged) and it still happens, however, the issues seem to be a little less frequent with only one monitor connected. 

[Arcanekitten]

3 minutes ago, laushik said:

I will try the power limit thing. My main monitor is HDMI and my second monitor is connected via an hdmi to display port wire. I highly doubt both of my monitors are going bad and I tested the games on each monitor (with the other one unplugged) and it still happens, however, the issues seem to be a little less frequent with only one monitor connected. 

If it is on both your monitors I would definitely look at the stability of the card. Try doing some under clocking and moving with the power limits/voltages. If that does not fix it, albeit temporally, it probably is your GPU giving the ghost although it still could be the PSU but unlikely.

 

The easiest way to find out if it is broken is to use another GPU or IGPU. I see you have a 6700K. That one has an iGPU. Try hooking up to that and unslotting your card from your PC. Still got the issue? than it is not the GPU

[laushik]

1 minute ago, Arcanekitten said:

If it is on both your monitors I would definitely look at the stability of the card. Try doing some under clocking and moving with the power limits/voltages. If that does not fix it, albeit temporally, it probably is your GPU giving the ghost although it still could be the PSU but unlikely. The easiest way to find out if it is broken is to use another GPU or IGPU if you have that on your CPU.

Thanks! Would I try testing the same games on the ICPU? 

[Arcanekitten]

1 minute ago, laushik said:

Thanks! Would I try testing the same games on the ICPU? 

the IGPU isn't nearly as strong as your GPU but yeah If you have lightweight games like CSGO, league or rocket league that play on basically any pc that isn't a brick.  

[laushik]

1 hour ago, Arcanekitten said:

the IGPU isn't nearly as strong as your GPU but yeah If you have lightweight games like CSGO, league or rocket league that play on basically any pc that isn't a brick.  

Yeah so no issues playing rocket league on the IGPU... Just had to set it to the lowest cettings for a solid 40 fps lol. Ok let me trying upping the power limit and I will get back to you. I did not, however, un-slot the GPU from the mobo, is that ok? Thanks

[laushik]

34 minutes ago, Arcanekitten said:

the IGPU isn't nearly as strong as your GPU but yeah If you have lightweight games like CSGO, league or rocket league that play on basically any pc that isn't a brick.  

So I increased the voltage, power, and temperature limit (don't worry I was monitoring all of this while gaming) and I also decreased the slide for clock speed and memory clock speeds all the way. This actually made the issue worse. What should I do now? 

 

[laushik]

1 hour ago, keik said:

My GPU does same from time to time, especially if the screen went sleeping after inactivity. 
Try over and underclocking GPU to see if it happens and check temperatures.

So I increased the voltage, power, and temperature limit (don't worry I was monitoring all of this while gaming) and I also decreased the slide for clock speed and memory clock speeds all the way. This actually made the issue worse. What should I do now? 

[keik]

Save current motherboard settings as a profile, load system defaults. Inspect motherboard if any of the capacitors isn't deformed, same for the power supply. If the warranty allows you, open it and visually check. 

But also, maybe you need to change termal paste on GPU and CPU? 

[hackgod]

Please don't open the power supply as you could  potentially get killed.

[keik]

10 minutes ago, hackgod said:

Please don't open the power supply as you could  potentially get killed.

Ah, forgot to mention: AFTER YOU UNPLUG FROM MAINS AND LET IT DISCHARGE FOR AT LEAST 2 HOURS

And only if you feel ok with it.

[Arcanekitten]

On 6/8/2020 at 9:24 PM, laushik said:

Yeah so no issues playing rocket league on the IGPU... Just had to set it to the lowest cettings for a solid 40 fps lol. Ok let me trying upping the power limit and I will get back to you. I did not, however, un-slot the GPU from the mobo, is that ok? Thanks

This was more to avoid your GPU still being the main gpu in use by your pc so that you would even get to display anything on the IGPU but it seemed to work fine. 

 

On 6/8/2020 at 9:42 PM, laushik said:

So I increased the voltage, power, and temperature limit (don't worry I was monitoring all of this while gaming) and I also decreased the slide for clock speed and memory clock speeds all the way. This actually made the issue worse. What should I do now? 

Honestly in my opinion the GPU is toast as you've proven that with a other graphics unit your PC works just fine and with the GPU inserted it does artifact. Also if you change settings on the GPU it changes the amount so my best bet would be a dead GPU sadly enough. PSU die less often than a GPU but I could not see artifacting becoming an issue from a PSU...

[laushik]

20 hours ago, Arcanekitten said:

This was more to avoid your GPU still being the main gpu in use by your pc so that you would even get to display anything on the IGPU but it seemed to work fine. 

 

Honestly in my opinion the GPU is toast as you've proven that with a other graphics unit your PC works just fine and with the GPU inserted it does artifact. Also if you change settings on the GPU it changes the amount so my best bet would be a dead GPU sadly enough. PSU die less often than a GPU but I could not see artifacting becoming an issue from a PSU...

Yup! I just confirmed this with another gpu! No issues with the other gpu. Is there any way I could fix the gpu? Is it normal for a gpu to die in 4 yrs?