[SOLVED] Screen black out and system restart after connecting second screen

[Ahura Mazda]

Hello everyone. Long time reader here, but finally created account since I have a problem I don't know how to approach anymore. Completely lost, and any, absolutely any advice will be greatly appreciated.
My config is:

LC-Power LCH600-12 V2.31

Asrock Z87 Fatality Killer
i5-4690k (not overclocked) (used to be G3258)
Sapphire Nitro+ RX 580 (used to be Sapphire R9 270X vapor-x)
8 GB RAM, Kingston 1333 MHz
Verbatim SSD 256GB for system
3 HDDs of various sizes

Windows 10 Pro OS.
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Prelude
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A few days ago, my old GPU R9 270X started behaving weird, random freeze with some visual artifacts here and there. After diagnosing and removing other components in and out, it made me think my GPU has reached its age, and I went out and purchased Sapphire Nitro+ RX 580. This is mainly because when I connect two screens to my integrated GPU, everything works normally.

After getting RX 570 and installing it, I was happy I could install drivers and everything was looking promising until my PC did not want to power on all the sudden. And I mean dead. No power, no nothing. The BIOS LED was not even on which made me think my mobo is dead and the reason why I saw glitches with the old GPU was maybe because it was dying out. I took my whole PC apart, cleaned every part and retried, but with no luck. With no components but RAM (or RAM + CPU), the mobo wouldn't turn on. Also, did a few BIOS updates to test if it could have caused problem.

I went and purchased a new mobo (will arrive today) and i5-5960k (to upgrade; came).

Confusion
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Day after, after clearing CMOS and playing with jumpers for 50th time, motherboard woke up, to my surprise.
I grabbed the new CPU and RX 580 ,and low and behold, there was no screen black out and restart. I was happy but confused.

Despair
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Now, after connecting second HDMI connection, screens black out, and either I must restart or it will do it by itself; Does not matter which port screen is connected to, both work by themselves.
Also, I have tried Manjaro Linux with same effects, which tells me this is not system related.

Hope and empty wallet
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Other motherboard will arrive later today, and now I don't know what to expect. I have two GPUs, two CPUs, and two MOBOs, enough to make a nice surprise to my younger brother though.

 

[RTX 2080]

I'd say take the new motherboard (when it arrives) and try running it with the R9 270X for a bit. If you don't get any freezing or screen artifacts, then it would appear that your R9 270X is fine, its just your old motherboard that is the problem. Then try running the new motherboard with your RX 580 and to confirm that your RX 580 works just fine. If your new motherboard works with your R9 270X but not your RX 580, then there may be something wrong with the RX 580.

If none of that works, perhaps get another 8 GB stick of RAM. This way you can a) confirm that your RAM isn't contributing to this issue by trying all of the above with a different RAM module and b), if the RAM has nothing to do with it, you get to upgrade to 16 GB of RAM which is really what you should be running with; you know its time for a RAM upgrade when your GPU (the RX 580) has as much memory as your motherboard does.

Who knows, its possible that you have two pieces of hardware malfunctioning at once which is why this has been so hard for you to diagnose.

Let me know how it works out, I'll try to help if I can.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

I'd say take the new motherboard (when it arrives) and try running it with the R9 270X for a bit. If you don't get any freezing or screen artifacts, then it would appear that your R9 270X is fine, its just your old motherboard that is the problem. Then try running the new motherboard with your RX 580 and to confirm that your RX 580 works just fine. If your new motherboard works with your R9 270X but not your RX 580, then there may be something wrong with the RX 580.

If none of that works, perhaps get another 8 GB stick of RAM. This way you can a) confirm that your RAM isn't contributing to this issue by trying all of the above with a different RAM module and b), if the RAM has nothing to do with it, you get to upgrade to 16 GB of RAM which is really what you should be running with; you know its time for a RAM upgrade when your GPU (the RX 580) has as much memory as your motherboard does.

Who knows, its possible that you have two pieces of hardware malfunctioning at once which is why this has been so hard for you to diagnose.

Let me know how it works out, I'll try to help if I can.

First off, thank you for replying.

Hmm, I have 2x4 GBs of RAM, and you're right, should definitely buy some more soon. I did swap them and tried different combinations and in different slots. Memtest68 say they are fine; even tested seperatelly just in case.

By the way, I did suspect PSU at first but since then I did extensive tests on GPU and CPU, and it handled the load just fine. Voltages are okay.

I really do hope motherboard is the culprit behind this. If GPUs work just fine, I'll switch to Apple products. It's more expensive and not better.

Will definitely post later this day – can't wait to see what is really going on.

 

[RTX 2080]

Ah, your first post made me think you had a single 8 GB stick of RAM.

It could be your PSU; what is the model and age of it? At the same time though, the power draw of your R9 270X is 180 watts while the power draw of the RX 580 is 150, so you'd think that if there was a problem with the RX 580, you'd be having the same issue with your R9 270X. Not impossible, but that would be a bit strange.

I had to lol when you mentioned Apple products. Have you seen the price of Apple computers lately? True, they are nice and tend to last a while, but man if they don't cost an arm and a leg. I should know, I have the honor of being married to someone who loves MacBooks and iPhones. My poor wallet...

Let me know how it goes, I'm interested to see how it all plays out.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

Ah, your first post made me think you had a single 8 GB stick of RAM.

It could be your PSU; what is the model and age of it? At the same time though, the power draw of your R9 270X is 180 watts while the power draw of the RX 580 is 150, so you'd think that if there was a problem with the RX 580, you'd be having the same issue with your R9 270X. Not impossible, but that would be a bit strange.

I had to lol when you mentioned Apple products. Have you seen the price of Apple computers lately? True, they are nice and tend to last a while, but man if they don't cost an arm and a leg. I should know, I have the honor of being married to someone who loves MacBooks and iPhones. My poor wallet...

Let me know how it goes, I'm interested to see how it all plays out.

If screen freezes and system restart occurs when GPU is idle and its power consumption is 33-34W (as in power manager in radeon software), and when system is under heavy load, but with one HDMI connected only, system is stable, it is really, really difficult to link those two together.

And about Apple, it is just a class thing in my opinion. Way, waaay overpriced and bad company practices in general. I'm not a buff in Apple products, but I have yet to come across something that will catch my attention apart from its ridiculous price. The question is rather why is she still your wife. (cheers on your wife)

 

[RTX 2080]

If screen freezes and system restart occurs when GPU is idle and its power consumption is 33-34W (as in power manager in radeon software), and when system is under heavy load, but with one HDMI connected only, system is stable, it is really, really difficult to link those two together.

And about Apple, it is just a class thing in my opinion. Way, waaay overpriced and bad company practices in general. I'm not a buff in Apple products, but I have yet to come across something that will catch my attention apart from its ridiculous price. The question is rather why is she still your wife. (cheers on your wife)

I won't tell her you said that. She's 100% worth it though, trust me.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

UPDATE

Motherboard came late yesterday, and after testing i see I have the same problem. BUT, when on Ubuntu, it works good now. I reinstalled Windows 10, still no luck.

So, after changing graphics card, cpu and mobo, the problem persists. Came to the conclusion it is the PSU? I see no other option. Literally tried everything else. Reached out to my neighbor to test with their PSU, but since it was tightly strapped ziplocked, they couldn't remove it. I tried GPU only plus two monitors, and it worked fine.

The thing that baffles me is that when on single monitor, I do a stress test for quite a bit, and everything is fine, PSU can hold just fine. And again, when the system is idle and second monitor is connected, it blacks out and restarts.

 

[RTX 2080]

My experience is limited to working with one monitor at a time only, so I'm afraid I can't provide any advice tailored specifically to this type of problem.

As you said, the last thing it seems that it could be is the PSU; fingers crossed...