Black screen with sound looping and fans at high speeds

[Jeffrey Miller]

Here's my setup:
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme 4
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Heat sink: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2
Ram: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3
Video Card: Radeon 7870
Power Supply: Cooler Master Elite Power - 460W
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit

My computer has been acting odd recently and I'm having a difficult time figuring out what's going on.

It'll randomly black screen with a sound loop (not related to what audio I was listening to at the time, some generic sound I can't particularly describe) as my fans turn up to a speed I've never heard them at (they aren't that fast prior to this) until I turn the computer off. It has no issue booting back up. So far I've only had this happen while either playing a game or video. It used to happen maybe every other month or so, but I just had it happen three times today. It's not entirely consistent either.

I've done two passes on memtest86 with no errors, so I'm fairly confident my ram isn't an issue.
Temperature-wise everything seems okay too. Using prime95 and core temp my idle is around 33C and 100% load after a while is 63-65C for my cpu. For my gpu my idle is a tad higher around 45C and under load it's high 60sC using FurMark and CCC.

A little info is that I've had my mobo/ram for a couple months, my video card for around a year, and my power supply/processor for a tad for 3 years. Everything is at stock settings.

Any advice on how to diagnosis this?

Thank you for your time.

 

[C12Friedman]

At three years old I'm thinking your PSU just doesn't have the oomph it did when new. The 7870 shouldn't be taxing the PSU in itself but I'm thinking you are experiencing "cross loading" issues (just a guess could be anything causing the power to be unstable). If you have access to a known working PSU, I'll suggest trying that

edit: you might try cleaning the PSU specifically as it is possible it is overheating causing those issues to occur

 

[Jeffrey Miller]

At three years old I'm thinking your PSU just doesn't have the oomph it did when new. The 7870 shouldn't be taxing the PSU in itself but I'm thinking you are experiencing "cross loading" issues (just a guess could be anything causing the power to be unstable). If you have access to a known working PSU, I'll suggest trying that

edit: you might try cleaning the PSU specifically as it is possible it is overheating causing those issues to occur

Hey, thanks for the response. I don't have another PSU with high enough power on me, so I'd have to buy a new one. I actually just had it do the same thing on me while just viewing a web page. Do you think this is still the case if this is happening in a low load situation?

I'll also point out that my PSU has a decent layer of dust/lint inside of it that I can't get out of it even with a vacuum, so I can definitely see what you're saying to be true.

I'd just like to be decently sure before dropping money on a new PSU. Is there anyway I could confirm something like this is happening?

Thank you.

 

[C12Friedman]

Unfortunately, with the symptoms your PC is showing, there is no way short of replacing one component at a time up to everything in there, to say this is what's wrong.
I will suggest trying some canned air (yes it is overpriced IMO). Unplug and remove the PSU, place the tube from the air down into the PSU and working it as best you can (I'm thinking there may be a little life still there if it's that dusty inside) Work as deep into the PSU as possible from as many angles as possible, short blasts (outdoors may be best for this). After no more dust comes out from doing that - try the PSU again, see if it doesn't stay on a while longer. You do want to address that soon though as heat will continue to make matters worse.

 

[Jeffrey Miller]

Unfortunately, with the symptoms your PC is showing, there is no way short of replacing one component at a time up to everything in there, to say this is what's wrong.
I will suggest trying some canned air (yes it is overpriced IMO). Unplug and remove the PSU, place the tube from the air down into the PSU and working it as best you can (I'm thinking there may be a little life still there if it's that dusty inside) Work as deep into the PSU as possible from as many angles as possible, short blasts (outdoors may be best for this). After no more dust comes out from doing that - try the PSU again, see if it doesn't stay on a while longer. You do want to address that soon though as heat will continue to make matters worse.

Took my PSU out and did a thorough cleaning. It hasn't reoccured all day. So for now I think it's fixed. If it starts happening again I'll just go and buy a new PSU.

Thanks for the help.