Horizontal lines and screen goes black

TheMooman · November 24, 2015

Hi, so I have a slight concern as to what is happening to my desktop. Since a few days ago, random horizontal lines blink here and there, but very rarely during normal use, and a little bit more during gaming. This isn't all that annoying, I suppose, but a major problem comes in when the screen simply turns black for a second or so, and then comes back to normal. I've tried quite a few things to see if they would work, i.e. upgrading to windows 10, switching the ends of the HDMI cable around and reinstalling GPU drivers, and yet these problems still occur from time to time, again, mostly during gaming, but sometimes when simply web browsing or sitting on the desktop. Any ideas as to what might be the problem and how to fix it, if possible? I've been thinking maybe it's the HDMI cable, because when I move it slightly on the PC end, the screen goes slightly crazy with lines and dots or goes black for a moment.

Also, my specs are:
- AMD FX-4130 @ 3.62GHz quad-core processor

- 8GB generic-brand RAM DDR3

- Sapphire R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 graphics card

- 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD

- Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard

- Corsair CX600W power supply

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

HPWebcamAble · November 25, 2015

Hi, so I have a slight concern as to what is happening to my desktop. Since a few days ago, random horizontal lines blink here and there, but very rarely during normal use, and a little bit more during gaming. This isn't all that annoying, I suppose, but a major problem comes in when the screen simply turns black for a second or so, and then comes back to normal. I've tried quite a few things to see if they would work, i.e. upgrading to windows 10, switching the ends of the HDMI cable around and reinstalling GPU drivers, and yet these problems still occur from time to time, again, mostly during gaming, but sometimes when simply web browsing or sitting on the desktop. Any ideas as to what might be the problem and how to fix it, if possible? I've been thinking maybe it's the HDMI cable, because when I move it slightly on the PC end, the screen goes slightly crazy with lines and dots or goes black for a moment.

Also, my specs are:

- AMD FX-4130 @ 3.62GHz quad-core processor

- 8GB generic-brand RAM DDR3

- Sapphire R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 graphics card

- 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD

- Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard

- Corsair CX600W power supply

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

A few things:

Sounds like your GPU is dying, could you take a picture (NOT a screenshot, use a physical camera) and post it?

OR

It might be the CX psu: http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/why-you-should-not-buy-a-corsair-cx

OR

Could be your monitor, can you test with a different one?

TheMooman · November 25, 2015

A few things:

Sounds like your GPU is dying, could you take a picture (NOT a screenshot, use a physical camera) and post it?

OR

It might be the CX psu: http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/why-you-should-not-buy-a-corsair-cx

OR

Could be your monitor, can you test with a different one?

Well, taking a picture is quite difficult to do in this case, because the lines appear only for, like, a single frame before going away again, and I think it's easy to imagine what it would look like if the screen was off. Hell, I even tried recording it but it seemed to go away too fast for it to be picked up and recorded

Instead of using another monitor, I connected a small TV that I have, and it seemed to work fine, honestly, and when I wiggled the cable slightly nothing would happen with the screen, but it did go black at one point after some wiggling.. My regular monitor is probably the problem, I think. I noticed a dead pixel appear recently, too, so I suppose that it's probably best to take it back on warranty either way. Before I do that, though, I got a hold of a different cable, and I suppose I'll see if that changes anything. I'll try to write about anything else that happens as soon as I can. Thanks for your help.

Edit: Also, after reading that link you provided, I guess that could, in fact, also be the problem here, since it would explain why problems happen during more intense use, which results in higher temperatures.