I was watching something on youtube, the only tab -nothing else running, and then suddenly my screen went black. The computer was making a loud airplane noise. This has been happening several times in the past few weeks. My computer was built in 2018 and I think it might be a hardware issue. Everything is up to date.
Any help or tips woud be appreciated.
You may have built that unit in 2018 but that group regulated S12II is from 2008. Was it new when you got it?
Loud Airplane noise sounds to me like a fan at full RPM. The sound is prior to the black screen or after the black screen? If the sounds is prior to the black screen, does the PC just shut down or continue to run? (lights on & fans still running)
You will need to test each peace of hardware for the issue which may be tough without replacement parts. I would start with the GPU and use your iGPU instead of the dedicated GTX 1060 and see if the problem persists.
OK, so you still have power. If it was my PC I would run it with the iGPU from the CPU via the mobo and see if it was my GPU (or maybe GPU driver) causing the issue.
first you need to switch the monitor cable to your mobo from the GPU (video card) with the PC off
I would then recommend you remove the GPU from the PC so the PSU & mobo no longer send power to it, the BIOS should default to integrated on boot up.
Two other ways
manually change to integrated in your BIOS graphic settings
go system-display-graphics in windows and change the setting in there
Ok, thank you. I’m still testing it out. In the meantime, do you recommend updating the Bios? Some people recommend updating to 4.20 and I haven’t touched that area since I made this thing.
sorry still working on your suggestion. Another thing I forgot to mention was what I discovered a while back on task manager. Even while idle, my memory is always around 50% and my disk space, most of the time, is at 100%. I was told awhile back to replace my storage with an SSD.
yes definitely, if you are using the old spinning HDD than switching to a SSD is a great quality of life upgrade. It won’t necessarily improve FPS but making your desktop snappier, improved load times, copy, paste, zip all improve.
if your HDD is at 100% means it’s fully active with read/write and really can’t process anything in a timely manner. It could be the cause of your problems but usually that means freezes but could turn into a black screen if drivers stop to work.
I would definitely get a SSD and do a clean install of Windows & drivers rather than clone your previous drive onto a new drive.
Do you have any friends that can drop by that is familiar with PC Building? Had a friend having similar issue. Dropp by his house and ran HWinfo. His CPU was hitting 88c at idle! Opened a few chrome tabs and all his fans would scream and PC would reboot.
Long story short this was in 2022 and His PC was built in 2014. He needed a Thermal paste reapplication on his CPU. I removed his old thermal paste and applied new. Issues stopped after that. Every 5years or so PCs need this done imo.
This COULD be the issue.
Agreed! We need to determine whether its a CPU, RAM, GPU or PSU issue. These are the most common parts that could cause this issue
This is never a bad idea. If its a HDD issue you should get this done pronto before your HDD fails completely. It may be on its last leg. If it fails completely your data may be unrecoverable.
I would start by downloading and installing HWinfo. Report back to us with your CPU, and GPU tempsIf needed you could watch a youtube video on how to use it. Everything is pretty clearly marked though
that would be expected behavior once the mobo temp sensor is trigger. His PC behaves almost like a bad driver with the screen going black yet fans still run that means power is still being fed through either the mobo and/or daisy chained via molex by the PSU (PC is dated). I know that PSU well (owned several of them over various brands) and its fan is mediocre as well as mediocre OCP sensor but he wouldn’t be triggering that by just watching videos.
if the HDD is bad and having read/write issues it could explain drivers not working properly.
If it was my PC I would check temps and open the side panel to see which fans are going 100% once you get the black screen, could help to see if something may be over heating especially if your screen is black and you can’t read it.
definitely get a SSD with a fresh install of windows & drivers, test the PC with the iGPU. If all is good then test the PC with the GTX 1060
Ty everyone for the quick responses. You guys are blessing!!! I checked my temps with hwinfo and they seem pretty low. Does a fresh install of windows mean I have to buy another key?
Did you check the GPU Temps also? If anything out of your components needs a repaste it would be that.
Second thing to try is to go to the Nvidia website and update you video driver to the latest GameReady version. If everything works after that? That was the issue a bad driver.
Third is to look into that SSD upgrade. Its What is going on could possibly be early warning signs your HDD is about to completely fail. You want to get this taken care off before it does and while your files are still accessible
I would report back with Lilly’s suggestion about the iGPU usage to see if it crashes still. Had something similar years back (rip gtx 660ti) where a bad driver caused black screen,fans going full tilt, and audio sometimes being normal or repeating what it was playing at the time.
Though I am curious what you have running in the background. A clean reinstall will usually remove the concerns of software causing the crash.
So, my GPU temps look normal.
I have the latest game studio driver from Nvidia. I’ll try uninstalling it later.
I’m looking into new parts. SSD and maybe a PSU
I have Mcafee, malware bytes, Steam, Asrock app, and Nvidia running in the background.
How do I turn on the IGPU again? I unplugged the cable that connects to my graphics card from the monitor, into the CPU/Mobo and the monitor is not picking up a signal? The computer is on, but the screen is blank.
Other than that, thanks again for all your input.
honestly that’s the first thing I remove from any computer I’m asked to work on. MS security does a fine job by itself and you can run malwarebytes free as well. Not being stupid with downloads and visiting bad sites goes a long way into your securtity.