My screen turns black for long periods of time

[ohchary]

I bought a built computer from my friend who has had it for a few years before me. The problem is, when I'm doing anything, whether playing games or just surfing the internet, my screen will turn black. I was in a call with my friend and my screen turned black, but I could still hear him for a good minute till the call went out. The only way I can fix it is to turn off the computer by holding the power button or turning off the power supply. Most of the times when I start up the computer again, it's still a black screen. I either have to leave the computer off for hours and pray that it works later or keep turning it off and on for it to work again. Sometimes it takes over an hour for it to work. Only to have it blackscreen again when it works.... Sometimes the computer works perfectly for days on end, but I have to leave it on or I will run into the blackscreen problem again.

specs :
Nvidia evga geforce gtx 970
4x4gb g skill ripjaws ddr3 ram
850w corsair gold tier power supply
Intel i7 3770k quad core processor
5TB hard disk space
Gigabyte Gaming L1150 motherboard

 

[DavidJT]

I wonder what you have in Control Panel for Power Options ?

 

[ohchary]

I wonder what you have in Control Panel for Power Options ?

It is on High Performance. I just changed it to Balanced

 

[aford10]

When it goes black, do you still hear audio? As in, other than the screen, is the computer still running normally, or did it lock up?

First thing to do, is check the power and data cable on both ends to make sure they are not loose.

 

[ohchary]

When it goes black, do you still hear audio? As in, other than the screen, is the computer still running normally, or did it lock up?

First thing to do, is check the power and data cable on both ends to make sure they are not loose.

I hear audio for about a good minute, then it glitches out and stops working. I'm usually in a call with friends on skype and I can still talk to them. Also when I turn it off then on and it's a blackscreen, if I leave it for a minute or so I can hear the windows startup sound

 

[aford10]

Ok, so if the audio also stops working when the screen goes black, the computer is also locking up. If that is the case, the issue is more than just the monitor. Is it your only monitor? When it happens, take note of the time/date, then once you are back to the desktop, go to the event viewer, and look at the system logs, and look for an error at that same time. That will point us in the right direction of what is the cause of the crash.

 

[ohchary]

Ok, so if the audio also stops working when the screen goes black, the computer is also locking up. If that is the case, the issue is more than just the monitor. Is it your only monitor? When it happens, take note of the time/date, then once you are back to the desktop, go to the event viewer, and look at the system logs, and look for an error at that same time. That will point us in the right direction of what is the cause of the crash.

Okay so it happened at 1:29 AM. This time I was playing Rust for the first time. It didn't turn black but it completely froze. I was in a call with my friends again and I could still hear and talk to them until I shut it down from the back. I went through the event logs after about an hour of trying to get it to work and I think I found the error http://imgur.com/gallery/4rnu8dP

These may be fixes? They are the same nvlddmkm error, but I want to know what you think first.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Fix-the-Nvlddmkm-Error/
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/413110/the-nvlddmkm-error-what-is-it-an-fyi-for-those-seeing-this-issue/
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-gaming/tdr-fix-here-it-actually-works/520396f9-f196-4e2b-a97a-94aae2102cd0

 

[ohchary]

Ok, so if the audio also stops working when the screen goes black, the computer is also locking up. If that is the case, the issue is more than just the monitor. Is it your only monitor? When it happens, take note of the time/date, then once you are back to the desktop, go to the event viewer, and look at the system logs, and look for an error at that same time. That will point us in the right direction of what is the cause of the crash.

I'm pretty sure it's my graphics card or drivers. So I had the problem again but it didn't turn black. It just froze. Could still talk to my friends with discord and hear them. I restarted it and left it on even though it was a black screen. I tried unplugging and plugging in the hdmi cord and nothing. Then I tried switching to my vga to dvi cord and nothing. Then I took off the dvi adapter and plugged the vga to my motherboard and it actually worked.... though, the resolution was absolute garbage lol. I also tried the hdmi into the motherboard but it didn't work for some odd reason? I'm pretty sure it's not the hdmi.

 

[aford10]

It looks very much like your graphics driver is the issue. Try running windows updates to see if it picks up the latest driver. If not, let me know and I'll look it up.