Screen Blacking Out Randomly

[Alex John]

Hey all,

I'm an avid flight sim enthusiast that enjoys nothing more than flying airliners around the world. But recently, I've had a problem that's doing my head in.

Every so often, probably once-twice a day now, my monitors will lose the signal and go black, regain it after a split-second (and show content a few seconds later), and any running fullscreen app crashes.

This is especially annoying for flight simming, where for most aircraft, the flight has to be started again - a pain after about an hour on the ground. It has also occurred in CS:GO and Rocket League, so I suspect dodgy drivers initially.

I'm looking for ideas to stop this from happening. Here are some specs:

Windows 10 Pro (10.0.26299)
Intel Core i5-4690K @ 3.9GHz
MSI Geforce GTX 970 @ Base clock
32GB DDR3 RAM @ 2133MHz
ASUS Maximum Ranger VII

I don't know what else there is to say, but if any more information needs to be provided, I'll be happy to provide it. Windows 10 is slowly but surely pushing me towards Linux with all the problems I've been having.

 

[Ralston18]

Dual monitors?

Are your sure that your GPU is fully and firmly seated?

No signs of overheating?

Check the Event Viewer logs.

Very likely that the logs are capturing some error code or warning just before or at the time of the blackouts.

Task Manager and Resource Monitor can be used to observe what your computer is doing as well. Just open one or the other and watch your system for a few minutes. Then slide the window to one side, open your flight simulator as normal.

What you will need to watch for is some resource being consumed. The % steadily increasing as you play.

Most likely the blackout will not let you see the final value(s) at the time of application crashing.

But you may be able to learn more about what is occurring and leading up to the crash.

 

[Alex John]

Dual monitors?

Are your sure that your GPU is fully and firmly seated?

No signs of overheating?

Check the Event Viewer logs.

Very likely that the logs are capturing some error code or warning just before or at the time of the blackouts.

Task Manager and Resource Monitor can be used to observe what your computer is doing as well. Just open one or the other and watch your system for a few minutes. Then slide the window to one side, open your flight simulator as normal.

What you will need to watch for is some resource being consumed. The % steadily increasing as you play.

Most likely the blackout will not let you see the final value(s) at the time of application crashing.

But you may be able to learn more about what is occurring and leading up to the crash.

Thanks for the reply. I did a bit of digging in the Event Viewer, found the exact cause, did a bit more research, and made multiple changes to my PC and a heap of debugging. Managed one flight today lasting more than 90 minutes in total, so that's a good start. Hopefully one of the things I did fixed it.

 

[Ralston18]

Very good.

Make some reference notes (as best you can remember) so if the problem returns you will again be able to fix the problem

Try to be aware of any incoming updates (for anything) that may undo your fix.