Question PC screen display goes black but PC stays on

[mastudier]

Been running into an issue lately regarding my Desktop gaming PC’s screen going black randomly. It is a very inconsistent issue. I run a two monitor setup and it happens on both monitors. I’ve gone a week without it happening but it has also happened 2-3 times in one day. Checked GPU and CPU temps and they are perfectly normal. No overheating. Ran stress tests on both cpu and gpu with no black screen happening. Also ran the windows system checker and it fixed corrupted windows files and the black screen still persists occasionally. Very irritating that I can seem to pinpoint the issue. Next thought it to completely clean out the pc of dust and reinstall gpu, cpu, ram, etc. Inital thought Is a software issue due to the stress testing not effecting the issue. Specs are listed below. Any advice would be appreciated

cpu - Ryzen 5 3600 w m240 liquid cooler
Mobo - msi b350 gaming plus
Gpu - 3070 FE
Ram - 32gb 3000mhz
Psu - EVGA 750 gold
Storage - 1 NVME 1TB, 1 ssd 1tb, 1 HDD 1TB

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

The easiest troubleshooting is to reinstall gpu drivers. Use ddu uninstaller to remove all driver files. Then reinstall newest whql drivers. Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 18.0.4.9 (guru3d.com) In event viewer, crtical events, are there any entries to coincide with the black screens?

 

[mastudier]

The easiest troubleshooting is to reinstall gpu drivers. Use ddu uninstaller to remove all driver files. Then reinstall newest whql drivers. Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 18.0.4.9 (guru3d.com) In event viewer, crtical events, are there any entries to coincide with the black screens?

I will reinstall gpu drivers once I am home. I haven’t checked event viewer. Is that something I can check even thought the black screen hasn’t happened in 24 hours?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Yes there are logs stored under event viewer if any are generated with date and times.

 

[mastudier]

Yes there are logs stored under event viewer if any are generated with date and times.

Looking under event viewer right now. I am currently selecting Event Viewer (Local), then selecting administrative events and looking for critical events. Nothing seems abnormal aside from the critical events of me forcing my pc to shutdown. But just before I have to reboot my pc, some of the events are errors and warnings. They state a faulting application name dwm.exe which is an error. Then a warning which states the desktop window manager process has exited. And there is also a warning that states display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered. I feel maybe the display driver warning may be linked but it says it recovered?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Did you reinstall the graphics drivers? Dwm.exe could be either malware/virus, hardware problem usually associated with a usb, or windows needs to be updated. Run virus check, see if any usb controller drivers need to be updated in device driver, see if any updates are needed for windows. Try unplugging your harddrive if it is using a usb slot. Try running sfc /scannow to check files.

 

[D-Ziner]

Just a thought. Could be your monitor power bricks. This happened to me with my LG monitor twice, and both times it turned out my power brick wasn't pushing enough power to my monitor so it would flicker randomly or not show anything after coming out of sleep mode. Like it would be on and I could switch sources to the generic "no source found" screen, but it wouldn't have enough power to power it normally.

 

[mastudier]

Did you reinstall the graphics drivers? Dwm.exe could be either malware/virus, hardware problem usually associated with a usb, or windows needs to be updated. Run virus check, see if any usb controller drivers need to be updated in device driver, see if any updates are needed for windows. Try unplugging your harddrive if it is using a usb slot. Try running sfc /scannow to check files.

I haven’t reinstalled drivers. I will do that next. I haven ram multiple virus checks with McAfee with it detecting nothing. I don’t see any usb drivers that need to be updated. Will try reinstalling drivers today.

 

[mastudier]

Just a thought. Could be your monitor power bricks. This happened to me with my LG monitor twice, and both times it turned out my power brick wasn't pushing enough power to my monitor so it would flicker randomly or not show anything after coming out of sleep mode. Like it would be on and I could switch sources to the generic "no source found" screen, but it wouldn't have enough power to power it normally.

I partially agree this could be a cause. The only thing that makes me think otherwise is since I have a dual monitor setup both monitors go black. I feel like both monitors wouldn’t go black if it was a monitor issue.

 

[D-Ziner]

I partially agree this could be a cause. The only thing that makes me think otherwise is since I have a dual monitor setup both monitors go black. I feel like both monitors wouldn’t go black if it was a monitor issue.

Yeah that is a fair point. I'm sorry man, that's all I got. If nothing else, those things can be bought on the cheap you know. Well good luck. I hope you get it solved.

 

[mastudier]

Did you reinstall the graphics drivers? Dwm.exe could be either malware/virus, hardware problem usually associated with a usb, or windows needs to be updated. Run virus check, see if any usb controller drivers need to be updated in device driver, see if any updates are needed for windows. Try unplugging your harddrive if it is using a usb slot. Try running sfc /scannow to check files.

Update. Uninstalled and reinstalled drivers using DDU. Did not work. No idea what’s happening. Today it has happened 5 times consecutively.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

When the screen goes black what happens with the pc, does it freeze up, does the screen come back on, does it continue to play sounds but no picture, and when you reset pc does the screen/windows come back on every time?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

What power plan are you using in Windows? Sorry regarding bios are there any power saving settings in use? And is your bios up to date?

 

[mastudier]

When the screen goes black what happens with the pc, does it freeze up, does the screen come back on, does it continue to play sounds but no picture, and when you reset pc does the screen/windows come back on every time?

When it black screens I can still hear audio from discord, games, YouTube, etc. Pc stays on as well as everything plugged into all USB ports. I updated bios not to long ago. Maybe 6 months ago when I got a new cpu. And as far as power plan I looked at some YouTube videos and switched it around so I’m not 100% sure what power plan I’m on.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Ok so try using high performance setting in windows power plan and see if anything changes. System, power sleep, change power plan, select high performance, restart pc. Also you mentioned devices plugged in to usb ports. Try unplugging one usb device at a time and see if it stops. Start with hd, then ssd if it is usb,

 

[mastudier]

Ok so try using high performance setting in windows power plan and see if anything changes. System, power sleep, change power plan, select high performance, restart pc. Also you mentioned devices plugged in to usb ports. Try unplugging one usb device at a time and see if it stops. Start with hd, then ssd if it is usb,

Appreciate all the info you’ve given me. unfortunately my 3070 was dead. Had to RMA it