Black screen issue

[spyder]

Hi I had built my first gaming rig yesterday, I have installed Windows 8 Pro however have ran into this issue where whilst I am using the desktop, the screen would suddenly turn black. Oddly enough I can still see my mouse cursor but everything else is just blacked out. This issue has happened twice now, the way I solved it is via hard rebooting windows back up however this isn't ideal because it will start to impact the lifespan of my new hard drive hence I am looking for a solution.

 

Currently now, the screen has started to consistently flicker now. I am connected to the graphics card which has a HDMi 2.0 output whilst my monitor has only a 1.4 HDMI input and no dvi or display port. 

 

The specs of my system is below

 

Intel core i5 4690K

Gigabyte GA Z97P-D3

16GB HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz

1tb Seagate SSHD

Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970 OC edition

evga 650W PSU modular g1

 

I need urgent suggestions, as of this time, I am leaving the machine on since I dont want to switch it off again and suffer the same issue.

 

The black screen occurs randomly.