I'm having some difficulty narrowing down the exact cause of my problem and am hoping to get some help here rather than simply replacing the various components of my system to figure out what's wrong.
Recently I had upgraded my video card from a GTX 285 to a GTX 580. The PSU I had for the 285 didn't have enough power going to the 12v rail and so I had also picked up a new PSU to go along with this, the HX850 which from the specs was ample power. I hadn't thrown any particular demanding games at my new setup for about the first month I owned the new card and PSU but recently while attempting to play both Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dead Island, my system would black screen and be irrecoverable unless I restarted the system. The flashing EVGA logo on my graphics card indicated that it was having a power related problem, as if it simply stopped working due to not having enough power. When this happens, my monitors will cycle through both analog and digital displays looking for a signal but it won't find one until I restart the system.
At this time, I've RMA'd my video card back to EVGA for them to look at after talking with their tech support and trying several of their suggested steps with no luck:
-Manually setting memory timings
-Moving the card to a different PCI slot
-Checking video card temperatures
-Checking the voltage on the 12v rail in the BIOS
They narrowed down my symptoms to either faultiness with the video card or PSU. I don't have a spare PSU to test my system with so I've opted to have the card RMA'd and looked at for now since I do have a backup 8800 GTS so I'm not completely without a computer.
The interesting thing that happened just last night though, the same black screening problem occurred where the monitors would cycle between analog and digital to find a signal but once again couldn't. The only difference in this occurrence was that the system remained running in the background and I was able to continue with my Skype call even though I couldn't see anything. When this happened with the GTX 580, the whole system would hang as the sound would distort and repeat the last millisecond of sound that was being played at the time. I continued my Skype call for a time only to have it eventually lead to the same demise of the system crashing in the background as well, but it took a good 5 or 10 minutes for this to happen rather than instantly with the 8800 GTS.
This is leading me to believe that there may be something else that's problematic. I suppose this could be the PSU or I even got to thinking if there was potentially something wrong with my motherboard and it's PCI slots perhaps?
Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can go through a process of elimination to figure out exactly what could be the issue?
Thanks!
Recently I had upgraded my video card from a GTX 285 to a GTX 580. The PSU I had for the 285 didn't have enough power going to the 12v rail and so I had also picked up a new PSU to go along with this, the HX850 which from the specs was ample power. I hadn't thrown any particular demanding games at my new setup for about the first month I owned the new card and PSU but recently while attempting to play both Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dead Island, my system would black screen and be irrecoverable unless I restarted the system. The flashing EVGA logo on my graphics card indicated that it was having a power related problem, as if it simply stopped working due to not having enough power. When this happens, my monitors will cycle through both analog and digital displays looking for a signal but it won't find one until I restart the system.
At this time, I've RMA'd my video card back to EVGA for them to look at after talking with their tech support and trying several of their suggested steps with no luck:
-Manually setting memory timings
-Moving the card to a different PCI slot
-Checking video card temperatures
-Checking the voltage on the 12v rail in the BIOS
They narrowed down my symptoms to either faultiness with the video card or PSU. I don't have a spare PSU to test my system with so I've opted to have the card RMA'd and looked at for now since I do have a backup 8800 GTS so I'm not completely without a computer.
The interesting thing that happened just last night though, the same black screening problem occurred where the monitors would cycle between analog and digital to find a signal but once again couldn't. The only difference in this occurrence was that the system remained running in the background and I was able to continue with my Skype call even though I couldn't see anything. When this happened with the GTX 580, the whole system would hang as the sound would distort and repeat the last millisecond of sound that was being played at the time. I continued my Skype call for a time only to have it eventually lead to the same demise of the system crashing in the background as well, but it took a good 5 or 10 minutes for this to happen rather than instantly with the 8800 GTS.
This is leading me to believe that there may be something else that's problematic. I suppose this could be the PSU or I even got to thinking if there was potentially something wrong with my motherboard and it's PCI slots perhaps?
Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can go through a process of elimination to figure out exactly what could be the issue?
Thanks!