PC Crashes to black screen (Usually when gaming)

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DReason479

Commendable
Aug 17, 2016
34
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1,530
When I play games on my PC, eventually my PC will crash to a black screen. The PC is still running, as is the monitor, but it just says "No Source" - so, I'm not getting an image, and I have to turn off my computer.

My Rig:
Dell Precision T3610
GPU: EVGA GTX 1060 SC
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 1TB
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1607 3.00 GHz
PSU: 675w
OS: Windows 10

I first bought my PC for Univeristy purposes as I was starting an Computer Animation course, and at that point I didn't intend to play games on it as I play most of my games on my Xbox/PS4. I bought the Dell Precision T3610 from the Dell website and it originally came with the Quadro K600 graphics crad, which was fine for my Univeristy course. It did originally come with a 500GB hard drive, but it wasn't working, so they then sent me a 1Tb hard drive instead.

As I have said, the PC will eventually crash no matter what game I play. At first, I thought it was just a gaming issue, but there have been times where it crashes when I'm not playing games and am just searching the web - although it does take much longer.

When I had my K600 installed, it never crashed when searching the web. I was able to play some games, like Rocket League, at quite low settings, but even then it wouldn't crash. I would then think that it's an issue with my Evga GTX 1060 Sc, but a couple of months ago I had an Evga GTX 970 Sc, and it used to crash then - so it can't be a GPU issue, right?

I've read/heard that the PSU that the computer came with originally, is more than enough for the GTX 1060 - The Nvidia geforce website says 400w is the minimum system requirement.

Things that I've tried:



  • Unistalling/Re-installing graphics drivers
    Updating drivers
    Trying old Graphics Drivers
    Unistalling/Re-installing GPU within the case itself
    Unparking CPU cores
    Unistalling un-necessary software
    Tweaking things on the system that will improve performance (E.g. Disabling animations)
    Changing things in the NVidia Control Panel
    Updating Bios
    Opening the PC Case (allowing for more heat to leave the PC - I also opened the windows in my room, so my room was quite cold)

 
Solution
C
The issue here is that you don't have a gaming PSU, plus the PSU isn't new. Prebuilt non-gaming computers often come with cheapo crappy PSU's that can't handle the demands of proper gaming components, even if they do meet the wattage requirements.

Are you sure the CPU is an E5-1607? I looked up your computer model and the datasheet says it comes with an E5-1600, and I can't find any E5-160X on PCPartPicker at all.

Exactly what RAM do you have? DDR3-1866? DDR3-1333? 2 sticks of 4GB? 1 stick of 8GB? 4 sticks of 2GB?

Edit:

Also, what's the motherboard's actual model name, if you know? I've found multiple sites that list the Dell Precision T3610's specs, but not a single one of them mentions the motherboard model.
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I did try WhoCrashed, but it didn't come up with anything because there wasn't any crash dump files on my PC. It does say that my computer does store crash files, but there wasn't any. I haven't used my computer that much recently, so it hasn't had the opportunity to crash.

I'll try using it again when it, inevitably, will.
 
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Ok, so my PC just crashed - I wasn't gaming, I was only using Google Chrome - checking facebook/twitter, while listening to some music on Youtube.

I tried running WhoCrashed once I turned the PC back on again, but it doens't come up with anything. It says my PC supports crash dumps, and has a directory, but I cannot find that directory.

Here are some screenshots showing WhoCrashed and the advanced settings in Startup and Security:
http://mydellt3610pc.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/whocrashed-no-crash-log.html
 
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In the first pic there's a link to an article about why your computer might not be generating crashlogs despite them being enabled. Can you either post a pic of that article or a link to it, if it's an online resource?
 
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I tried following some of the things that it says, and it doesn't seem to change anything, or there isn't anything for me to change. The only thing I find odd is the C:/WINDOWS/Minidump folder that WhoCrashed is using - I can't find that folder.

http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed_enablingdumps
 
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...I love how they say that in order to enable full crashlog generation your computer has to meet several requirements, but they don't actually tell you what those requirements are...Anyways. The folder may be hidden. If you go to the View tab in File Explorer, is "Show hidden folders" checked? If not, check it, and then look for the folder again.

I also just noticed that the instructions seem to have been written for an older version of Windows. Win10 doesn't have the "My Computer" option in the Start menu; in fact, it hasn't been specifically called that since Windows XP. The site does claim that the program supports Win10, but I'm wondering if it can successfully read Win10 crashlogs. My own computer appears not to have crashlog generation enabled, as I do not have the Minidumps folder either.

Edit:

Did a spot of research; if you don't have a Minidumps folder, there should be a file called MEMORY.DMP in the WINDOWS folder itself. Maybe if you manually create the Minidumps folder and copy that file into it WhoCrashed will be able to find and read it?
 
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Yeah, it is really confusing, and I did wonder about it's support with Windows 10, as some things that it tells you to do, isn't there or is worded differently/in different areas.

I can't find the MEMORY.dmp neither. In the startup and security settings it says that the dump files will be in %systemroot%/Memory.dmp, but I can't find that - even when I've made sure it shows hidden folders.

One more thing that I've triedl to fix the crashing problem is that I have put the GPU into another PCI-e 16x port. I thought maybe, it was in the incorrect port anyway, which may have caused the crashing, but it was in one of the 2 ports that it's meant to be in. I put it in the other port, and will wait and see if that somehow makes a difference.
 
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Yeah, I've tried doing everything it says, but it still makes no difference. Really don't understand what can be causing this problem.
 
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Ok, so putting the GTX 1060 into another GPU slot seemed to be quite promising, as I was able to play some games on my PC for a few hours with no problems, yesterday.

Today, I started to play Fifa 17 - one of the games that I played yesterday- and it crashed during my second game.

A couple of hours later, I watched a video on youtube, which I found by searching for "Black Screen PC Crash" - I watched it on my Xbox One, so I didn't know whether it had a lot of likes or dislikes -although, looking at it now, the likes/dislike ratio is quite good, compared to other videos that I've watched. The guy in the video says it can be fixed by changing the power options. Changing the PCI Express options to "Off" - it was already on moderate for me, but he had it originally set to maximum.

This is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNUuC4tKHc

I did that. And once again, it seemed promising. I was able to play quite a few games on FIFA with no problems. I stopped playing, and then continued to look at twitter/facebook etc. while listening to music on youtube. But after an hour or so it crashed.

I tried running WhoCrashed and it still says that no crash files were found, even though my PC supports them.
 
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Yeah, it's not looking good.

After my last reply, which was a few days ago, I changed the power settings again so that it was at high performance, instead of balanced - although, looking at it now, it's still on balanced, and when I change it, it doesn't let me apply the changes.

Anyway, I was able to use my computer for a couple of days with absolutely no crashes. I play some games, which all ran fine. But, on the next day, it crashed again. Interestingly though, about an hour or so before the crash, I did update the graphics driver via Geforce Experience.

That's probably just a coincidence, but it was rather odd timing.
 
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Which version of the driver did you initially install when you upgraded your card? If it was newer than 378.66, try rolling back to that version; apparently, there have been numerous issues with all the drivers since that version.
 
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Well, I got my 1060 on 24 April, although I didn't install it until a couple of weeks later. So it's either the 381.89 or 382.05 driver that was the initial driver.

The thing is though last year, on April 2nd, I bought a gtx 970 and I had the same experiences then as well - that's how I know it can't be a problem with the GPU itself. Unfortunately, the geforce website won't go back past December 2016, so I have no idea what driver number that was -although it was obviously way before the 378.66.

As I have said before, when I had my Quadro K600 installed, which is what I used when I was an Animation student - that didn't crash. That of course didn't need PCI connections nor much power to run - this is where I think the problem must be, as the970 and 1060 do need more power and a PCI connection.
 
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Yeah, I will try that, when I can afford to buy one.

Today, it crashed basically as soon as I typed in my Pin to log on. So my PC was only on for about 30 seconds, and it was the first time that I turned it on as I had just woken up.
 
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I think my current PSU is fine in that regard. It's an 80+ Gold 685w PSU, so I think it is good quality. But I do agree that I think the PSU is to blame.
 
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Not yet bought or tried another PSU yet, so it is still crashing. Yesterday, I started using Photoshop again - I haven't used it in a few months, so I wouldn't have had my gtx 1060 then - my Quadro k600 would be installed and it didn't crash. I can use it for about 10 minutes before it crashes, so I'm not able to make much progress on the thing I'm using it for.

When I use Photoshop, I have my graphics tablet plugged into a USB port, so that uses some extra power.

This doesn't really add much to the conversation, but I think it is a clear that crashes are, usually, caused when the PSU is being "over-worked".
 
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I have the same issue with Gtx 1060 6gb strix OC
My specs are
Dell precison t3500
Xxeon w3520
16gb ddr 3 1333mhz ram
And whenever i tried to play any game it crashes after 2-4minutes

I think it is because of my PSU who cant handle such a power
 
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