Random monitor blackscreen when playing any game in fullscreen

[CompJeff]

When playing any game in fullscreen, my monitor has a chance of blackscreening. I can't do anything except to force shutdown. Things like skype still work and I can still talk to people on it. The monitor doesn't lose signal as it doesn't display a no signal message when it blackscreens.

I am fairly certain that it has nothing to do with my computer specs. I've played army men rts which was released back in 2002 and my computer is a asus m51ac series in which it can totally handle. I even went into task manager and saw that army men was using less power than google chrome!

Note: This issue starting occurring after quite a few months of when I purchased the computer. Like I was playing games in fullscreen all fine then one day while I was playing CSGO, the monitor just blacked. Ever since then, any game in fullscreen has a random chance of blackscreening. The chances of blackscreening never seemed to increase nor decrease.
Another side note after the phenomenon; I downloaded Rainbow Six Siege and on the first day, I've played in fullscreen all day no problems. Next day, 20 minutes in, blackscreen. After a restart, I launched it and it didn't even get to the loading screen without a black screen. I've tried multiple times and everytime I launched Rainbow, blackscreen. Eventually I just reinstalled it and it worked. Again, it worked for a while then suddenly blackscreen while playing and whenever I launch it, blackscreen. Taking no chances for it to occur again, I quickly switched the game into windowed mode when I reinstalled it again. This is the only game so far that does this. Every other game is like on a RNG blackscreening chance when in fullscreen.

I swear I got like a RNG virus code or something. Like hmm is this guy in fullscreen? Check. Then every 10 minutes roll 1/10 chance of black screening. Like wtf computer. I just want to have an uninterrupted game session with my friends.

Specs:
Model: ASUS m51ac series
Operating system: windows 8 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 10240MB RAM
Graphics card: GeForce GT 630
(Sorry if I'm missing anything else important. I just think these are the important ones. Let me know if you need more info than this)

Only notable thing I'd say about my specs is my graphics card but even then, it shouldn't have any problems with a 2002 game like army men rts...right?

Short: One day a phenomenon happened and ANY games in fullscreen will have a random chance of blackscreening my monitor. Friends get pissed off because we're in a middle of a gaming session.

Playing in windowed mode is not a solution as I want to play older games like army men rts and order of war but they didn't have window mode integrated back in the day. Thanks in advance!

 

[James Mason]

But Windowed mode doesn't cause crashes on games like CSGO and R6S?

It sounds like your GPU could be the problem, as it tries to process a data piece and hits a code that kills it.
Or your PSU, as it was probably never vary good, as when your GPU tries to draw a certain amount of power it kills the system.

Replacement PSU, suggestion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074
Replacement GPU, suggestion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127935

But before buying anything I'm curious about the windowed/fullscreen thing.

Also, virus removal: https://www.malwarebytes.org/

Is reinstalling Windows an option for you?

Also, how much RAM do you have? what are the sticks like? you say you have 10, but that's a very weird combo to have and difficult to achieve.

Could also be busted GPU drivers, especailly if you've just been updating all this time (and explains why it happened a few months after buying the system)

If you have graphics or driver issues, one of the most common fixes is a clean uninstall and removal of your graphics drivers.

To uninstall your drivers, first download and run Display Driver Uninstaller, and follow it's recommendations of booting into safe mode and ect.
(This is a direct download link so you don't grab the wrong version)
http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/display-driver-uninstaller-download,20.html

You'll download a compressed file called "[Guru3D.com]-DDU.zip"
Right click and choose extract.
Go into the folder and run the DDU v##.##.exe
This will extract more files to this folder.
Run Display Driver Uninstaller.exe
Choose Yes when it asks you to boot into SafeMode.
After you've rebooted into safe mode.
When DDU comes up, if it hasn't selected your GPU manufacturer (Nvidia/AMD/Intel) then choose it from the drop down list
Press the Clean and Restart option
If a window comes up asking to disable the Windows automatic installation of display drivers click yes.

After (or before removing the old drivers, just put the new ones on the desktop or somewhere handy) rebooting back into Windows, manually download the latest drivers from Nvidia or AMD, don't use auto detect, choose you GPU model and OS from the drop down lists.
Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
AMD: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

 

[CompJeff]

Well the blackscreening only occurs when the game takes full control of the monitor. It doesn't blackscreen when the game is set to borderless window or windowed mode. I'm fine with playing on windowed mode but older games don't have that option.

Was joking about the virus thing. I don't have a virus...probably.

I've got quite a bit of important big programs so I don't really want to reinstall windows in case something messes up.

I really don't know about the RAM sticks but this video has basically the exact same pc as I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFuXfMTAYQ

I do update my GPU from time to time but I think I started updating my drivers and stuff after the phenomenon of the blackscreening. After the blackscreen issue I just started updating all my drivers trying to fix it but to no avail. I might have updated my drivers a few times before the blackscreening issue but I definitely know I updated them after the issue occurred, trying to fix it.

If it's graphics/driver issues, shouldn't I still be having problems when I play in windowed/borderless window mode? Also before I attempt to reinstall my graphics drivers; if it somehow messes up, will I lose my important data? Otherwise I have to finish my work first before doing it because it's like 90GB of data (multimedia). Thanks for your help!

 

[James Mason]

Well the blackscreening only occurs when the game takes full control of the monitor. It doesn't blackscreen when the game is set to borderless window or windowed mode. I'm fine with playing on windowed mode but older games don't have that option.

Was joking about the virus thing. I don't have a virus...probably.

I've got quite a bit of important big programs so I don't really want to reinstall windows in case something messes up.

I really don't know about the RAM sticks but this video has basically the exact same pc as I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFuXfMTAYQ

I do update my GPU from time to time but I think I started updating my drivers and stuff after the phenomenon of the blackscreening. After the blackscreen issue I just started updating all my drivers trying to fix it but to no avail. I might have updated my drivers a few times before the blackscreening issue but I definitely know I updated them after the issue occurred, trying to fix it.

If it's graphics/driver issues, shouldn't I still be having problems when I play in windowed/borderless window mode? Also before I attempt to reinstall my graphics drivers; if it somehow messes up, will I lose my important data? Otherwise I have to finish my work first before doing it because it's like 90GB of data (multimedia). Thanks for your help!

Get Malwarebytes anyways, it's free and it's the best virus remover outthere (except ones for very specific viruses, or ones that require a lot more computer knowledge)

Open up your case and count how many ram sticks you have, the one in the video only has 1 stick, so it's not the exact same.

Try the driver uninstaller, it won't affect anything besides your graphics drivers, and that's only needed for processing 3d graphics anyways, AND you're going to be reinstalling them again immediately after they're removed.
The reason to use that is because the nvidia driver update isn't the best at fully removing the drivers and a third party utility will actually properly go through and remove any traces of them.

It's a simple fix so it's best to get it out of the way before trying more complicated things.

And finally, it COULD be your GPU is just flaking out on you. If you have any friends you can borrow one from to test with or something it's a good thing to diagnose.

 

[CompJeff]

Ummm well I looked into my case and took some pictures and compared it to the youtube video and we have like the exact same stuff...

I've reinstalled my display drivers. Now I've gotta spend a few days testing in fullscreen. I'll let you know in a few days on how it goes in fullscreen.

Also I just remembered something. I think I ran IObit's smart defrag not that long before the blackscreening issue. Could be the defrag messed something up? Just something I remembered.

See you in a few days! Thanks for your help so far.

 

[James Mason]

Ummm well I looked into my case and took some pictures and compared it to the youtube video and we have like the exact same stuff...

I've reinstalled my display drivers. Now I've gotta spend a few days testing in fullscreen. I'll let you know in a few days on how it goes in fullscreen.

Also I just remembered something. I think I ran IObit's smart defrag not that long before the blackscreening issue. Could be the defrag messed something up? Just something I remembered.

See you in a few days! Thanks for your help so far.

Possibly, Defraging is moving data around so it's more in order, but if it got interrupted or something who knows.

 

[CompJeff]

Ok so it lasted 2 days without blackscreening but now today, I've encountered it while playing shogun 2. I almost thought reinstalling resolved it but I guess not.