This is my first time posting here. I've had this issue for a few months and would like to get advice on how to go about solving it. Keep in mind I'm not tech-savvy and my knowledge of PC hardware ends at opening the PC case and tinkering with the cables. I chose the parts myself but don't know how to put a PC together nor how to take one part. I'll do my best to cooperate with you so hopefully this won't be an issue.
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Some videogames on my PC have been doing this weird thing where they cause my PSU to start making audible ticking noises and the screen starts flickering on and off with at random intervals. If ticking can't be heard there is no flickering. By "flickering" I mean the following - screen would go off (all sound stops too) every 1-2 seconds, for a few seconds at a time. When not off, the screen visibly tries to "readjust" (moves a little from side to side) and, if there happens to be a black background/spot on the display, there are visible, white horizontal tear lines at random places on screen.
Another weird thing is that the "severity" of the ticking influences the frequency at which the monitor flickers on and off. For the past week every time I turned my PC on there was slight ticking and my screen would go off every 1-2 seconds for 1-2 seconds; but, if this happens after a game is launched, the ticking can be so loud/frequent that the screen turns off for 10-20 seconds at a time and only turns on for about half a second before shutting off again, effectively making the PC unusable.
Here are some games that cause this to happen:
Here's what I tried doing to mitigate the issue:
Here are my specs:
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Some videogames on my PC have been doing this weird thing where they cause my PSU to start making audible ticking noises and the screen starts flickering on and off with at random intervals. If ticking can't be heard there is no flickering. By "flickering" I mean the following - screen would go off (all sound stops too) every 1-2 seconds, for a few seconds at a time. When not off, the screen visibly tries to "readjust" (moves a little from side to side) and, if there happens to be a black background/spot on the display, there are visible, white horizontal tear lines at random places on screen.
Another weird thing is that the "severity" of the ticking influences the frequency at which the monitor flickers on and off. For the past week every time I turned my PC on there was slight ticking and my screen would go off every 1-2 seconds for 1-2 seconds; but, if this happens after a game is launched, the ticking can be so loud/frequent that the screen turns off for 10-20 seconds at a time and only turns on for about half a second before shutting off again, effectively making the PC unusable.
Here are some games that cause this to happen:
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare - Max graphical settings, fullscreen at a 1080p resolution, makes screen go black after joining any game and waiting for a few seconds.
Insurgency - Max graphical settings, fullscreen at a 1080p resolution, makes screen go black after exactly 2-3 rounds (playing multiplayer matches has a chance to not cause this, playing Coop with other people and bots almost always does).
Superfighters Deluxe - Max graphical settings, borderless window at a 1080p resolution, makes screen go black after 20-40 minutes of playing. Setting the resolution to fullscreen seems to fix the issue.
Here's what I tried doing to mitigate the issue:
- Changing the HDMI cable. This helped for about a month or two before the flickering returned.
- Running onboard (Intel) graphics when the flickering started instead of using the GPU. This doesn't stop the flickering.
- Running the PC in Safe Mode. This doesn't stop the flickering.
- Updating the graphics drivers to the latest version. Alternatively, rolling versions back to outdated ones in case the new ones are somehow incompatible with my OS/GPU. Neither prevented flickering.
- Running the games on lower graphical settings and windowed/borderless settings. Neither prevented flickering.
Here are my specs:
MB: Gigabyte Z97-D3H
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K @ 3.50GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
RAM: Transcend 4GB DDR3 1600MHz [x2]
SSD: Transcend SSD370 256GB
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
PSU: Antec HCG-620M (620w)
OS: Windows 7 Enterprise Edition 64-bit