Computer booting up then going to black screen after a few minutes. possibly graphics card?

[bennergarrett]

hello,

I decided to build my first computer as a summer project since I have always wanted to build a gaming PC, just never had the money before. I went off of a guide (posted at bottom) in hopes of not causing any problems doing it completely on my own. The first few month or two it worked great! The only problem was that it would glitch out and go into a vertical line screen or black screen after a while from games like AC unity, and Shadows of Mordor.

I looked around the Net for similar problems and decided to buy a water cooler. After doing so, the computer would black screen even faster, only booting the PC too, not from games. So I then upgraded the PSU to 600 thinking maybe it was a power issue. Now it boots sometimes as a black screen, other times it takes a few minutes then it goes into black screen.

I've done many things these past two weeks to try and figure it out. I reinstalled windows 7 and it worked! but as soon as I installed the AMD drives/Catalyst it would black screen on boot. I tried reinstalling using cd's only and then reinstalled using website updated drivers only. I have tried putting the video card in different slots, the memory in different slots. I restarted the CMOS (using same batter) I've tried different computer screens, though both are using a HDMI to VGA converter.

Now it goes to black screen after 3-5 minutes regardless of me being in BIOS, Reinstalling windows 7, booting up in safe mode. Though it will never work if I boot up windows regular.

Possible mistakes: the graphics card recommended rose dramatically in price, so I bought an alternative that PCpartPicker said was compatible. I bought it from another company (I can check if need be) that sold it as refurbished. The other possible mistake could be the CPU. I only scraped off the thermal paste with a plastic card and didn't use alcohol when switching to the water cooler. I believe I took off the CPU fan once to make sure the CPU was placed correctly and did not replace the thermal paste way back when the problem first started.

I am hoping to have a solution of what might be broken, what to test, or what to do next? I was really excited to build my first and have it running, but now it's been a headache and am on the verge of giving up, except that means I wasted almost a grand at this point trying to build/fix it.

Here is my build:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard
MEMORY:Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
STORAGE: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
VIDEO CARD: MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
POWER SUPPLY (UPGRADED): CORSAIR CX600M
added internal wifi
added water cooler
added cd/dvd drive

And a link to the build I used:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/TheGameNexus/saved/j2LH99

 

[meat_loaf]

hello,

I decided to build my first computer as a summer project since I have always wanted to build a gaming PC, just never had the money before. I went off of a guide (posted at bottom) in hopes of not causing any problems doing it completely on my own. The first few month or two it worked great! The only problem was that it would glitch out and go into a vertical line screen or black screen after a while from games like AC unity, and Shadows of Mordor.

I looked around the Net for similar problems and decided to buy a water cooler. After doing so, the computer would black screen even faster, only booting the PC too, not from games. So I then upgraded the PSU to 600 thinking maybe it was a power issue. Now it boots sometimes as a black screen, other times it takes a few minutes then it goes into black screen.

I've done many things these past two weeks to try and figure it out. I reinstalled windows 7 and it worked! but as soon as I installed the AMD drives/Catalyst it would black screen on boot. I tried reinstalling using cd's only and then reinstalled using website updated drivers only. I have tried putting the video card in different slots, the memory in different slots. I restarted the CMOS (using same batter) I've tried different computer screens, though both are using a HDMI to VGA converter.

Now it goes to black screen after 3-5 minutes regardless of me being in BIOS, Reinstalling windows 7, booting up in safe mode. Though it will never work if I boot up windows regular.

Possible mistakes: the graphics card recommended rose dramatically in price, so I bought an alternative that PCpartPicker said was compatible. I bought it from another company (I can check if need be) that sold it as refurbished. The other possible mistake could be the CPU. I only scraped off the thermal paste with a plastic card and didn't use alcohol when switching to the water cooler. I believe I took off the CPU fan once to make sure the CPU was placed correctly and did not replace the thermal paste way back when the problem first started.

I am hoping to have a solution of what might be broken, what to test, or what to do next? I was really excited to build my first and have it running, but now it's been a headache and am on the verge of giving up, except that means I wasted almost a grand at this point trying to build/fix it.

Here is my build:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard
MEMORY:Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
STORAGE: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
VIDEO CARD: MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
POWER SUPPLY (UPGRADED): CORSAIR CX600M
added internal wifi
added water cooler
added cd/dvd drive

And a link to the build I used:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/TheGameNexus/saved/j2LH99

Having vertical lines on a screen doesn't indicate power supply problem. So here is your first mistake, dumping more money into useless things without having any knowledge. Your second mistake is buying a water cooler. There is no need for a water cooler because its not a heat issue. If your If cpu is overheated you would know instantly since the cpu is designed to shut itself off from damange. If your computer is working great in three months and dies with vertical lines, you mostly bought a bad graphics card with a high possibility of being a bad gpu chip. If you replaced a heatsink without adding thermal paste, you might have damanged your cpu.

There is really is no way to check if your cpu is damanged or not. I can only recommend first off trying a new gpu and test if its bad gpu. If its not gpu, then you just wrecked your cpu from being careless. But your biggest mistake of all is buying a refurbished gpu. Anyone should know better than that, buying refurbshed gpu online is generally the worst thing you can do. You have no way to guarentee the card isn't abused. Always buy a new graphics card to save yourself the trouble and wastage of money.

Word of advice when building new computers: spend more time reading and researching, because reading guides isn't the ultimate solution to error free. Even myself that builds computers occasionally, still run into occasional issues that requires troubleshooting to get things working. Many people without the prior knowledge will not recognize the symptons and will not start looking and testing answers in the right way. In a way you are like that spending money on replacing psu and water cooling which isn't the main cause of problem.

 

[Guest]

hello,

I decided to build my first computer as a summer project since I have always wanted to build a gaming PC, just never had the money before. I went off of a guide (posted at bottom) in hopes of not causing any problems doing it completely on my own. The first few month or two it worked great! The only problem was that it would glitch out and go into a vertical line screen or black screen after a while from games like AC unity, and Shadows of Mordor.

I looked around the Net for similar problems and decided to buy a water cooler. After doing so, the computer would black screen even faster, only booting the PC too, not from games. So I then upgraded the PSU to 600 thinking maybe it was a power issue. Now it boots sometimes as a black screen, other times it takes a few minutes then it goes into black screen.

I've done many things these past two weeks to try and figure it out. I reinstalled windows 7 and it worked! but as soon as I installed the AMD drives/Catalyst it would black screen on boot. I tried reinstalling using cd's only and then reinstalled using website updated drivers only. I have tried putting the video card in different slots, the memory in different slots. I restarted the CMOS (using same batter) I've tried different computer screens, though both are using a HDMI to VGA converter.

Now it goes to black screen after 3-5 minutes regardless of me being in BIOS, Reinstalling windows 7, booting up in safe mode. Though it will never work if I boot up windows regular.

Possible mistakes: the graphics card recommended rose dramatically in price, so I bought an alternative that PCpartPicker said was compatible. I bought it from another company (I can check if need be) that sold it as refurbished. The other possible mistake could be the CPU. I only scraped off the thermal paste with a plastic card and didn't use alcohol when switching to the water cooler. I believe I took off the CPU fan once to make sure the CPU was placed correctly and did not replace the thermal paste way back when the problem first started.

I am hoping to have a solution of what might be broken, what to test, or what to do next? I was really excited to build my first and have it running, but now it's been a headache and am on the verge of giving up, except that means I wasted almost a grand at this point trying to build/fix it.

Here is my build:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard
MEMORY:Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
STORAGE: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
VIDEO CARD: MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
POWER SUPPLY (UPGRADED): CORSAIR CX600M
added internal wifi
added water cooler
added cd/dvd drive

And a link to the build I used:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/TheGameNexus/saved/j2LH99

I agree with meat_loaf, that it is probably the refurbished graphics card that is causing your problem. Had you just purchased a refurbished card to upgrade an old computer it would not be such a big issue, as you would know immediately that it was the problem, and not something else.

I, personally, would never buy a refurbished video card to put into a new build. Besides, buying any refurbished computer component is really just buying someone else's problem - while it may work okay for a while it will almost always fail sooner than a brand new one and may just cause you all sorts of headaches before it does.

 

[Ferdly1]

Never ever remove heat sink without putting on new paste. You want a good bond there for heat transfer. Why scrimp a few bucks on paste to screw up a proc chip.

 

[meat_loaf]

Never ever remove heat sink without putting on new paste. You want a good bond there for heat transfer. Why scrimp a few bucks on paste to screw up a proc chip.

Inexperienced and completely clueless what oneself is doing is the answer.

 

[Ferdly1]

There is always a learning curve like in everything. Do it yourselfers just have to be prepared to bear the cost when they mess up. I do everything myself cars, boats , electronics. These forums and you tube are a good source for the do it yourselfer.