Been playing D4 on 4K since pre-release. Been playing World of WarCraft Dragonflight on 4K before that. I was on 1920x1800 before that. I started playing on 3840x2160 when WoW Dragonflight started using a 60 inch 4k TV as my monitor for PC gaming.
Around first few Seasons on D4, I occasionally experience rare around 1 second Black Screens but it comes back normally afterwards. Then after some weeks, it got worse, when it gets Black Screen although seldom, it wont come recover back until after I plug out and plug back in the special 4k HDMI cable.
Then recently, it got worse. When it gets to Black Screen, even if I plug out and in the HDMI cable, it remains on Black Screen. And I heard the fan blew hard. I just shut it down then restart. At first, it’s recovering. Then it got worse until it wont recover anymore after restart.
From here, I started looking at the Black Screen issues on D4 from the internet. And most I have saw concluded that their videocard got fried by D4. So I accepted my videocard’s fate… he’s dead.
In the afternoon, I tried to turn on my pc to see if it would still turn on. And it did. I tested my PC with User Benchmark to see if my videocard is no longer performing well. And it says that my videocard is performing well like a Beast. So I tried to load Diablo 4 again. I was able to roam around for a minute then it blacked out again followed by loud whirring of my pc fans. So I turned it off.
I just let it cooldown for about 10 to 15 minutes and restarted again and it still able to access my desktop. I went back to the internet to look for solution to my black screen issues. One guy said that he lowered his resolution and his Black Screen Issues went away. So I tried it. I lowered it to 2560x1440 and loaded D4. I was able to run 1 whole Vault NM Dungeon. It was perfect.
The next day, I tried playing D4 again, this time the game didnt accept 2560x1440 and it auto switched to 1920x1800. It looks ugly to my 4K TV monitor. My conclusion is that my videocard overheats and when it does, it do Black Screen to turn off the card preventing it from Burning. And I decided to open my desktop pc.
I was shocked when I saw tons of dusts on all 5 fans. So I made some heavy cleaning on them then tried it again. Still, Black Screen Issues persists.
One more theory why it still overheats… that the thermal paste between the gpu chip and water block of the water cooler is no longer performing after 3 years exposure of gpu chip at high temperatures. The heat from the gpu chip should transfer to the water block and the heat from water block would be dissipated out through water going to mini-radiator. It’s just the heat got stucked on the chip causing to overheat.
So I bought a cheap Thermal paste on Best Buy. I applied it to the chip after cleaning out the old paste. I installed an app to check my GPU temperatures. Before running Diablo 4, my GPU temp is just around 29C. I know GPU overheats at around 80C+ and it auto-shutdown to prevent it from burning. When it shutsdown, it shows the Black Screen. When you see a Black Screen, it’s just a preventive measure not to burn the chip. Anyway, when I ran DIablo 4, my GPU temp went up to 41C. It wont overheat anymore becoz the thermal paste and water cooler is performing well doing its job.
I dont need a new videocard becoz my current one is still performing well. It just need proper maintenance. GG guys.
No, D4 did not fry our Videocard. But I agree D4 can make your videocard work harder. It helps if your hobby is Assembly/Dissecting of Gaming PC’s. Good luck guys.