Screen goes black, power still on only restart gets rid of it

[deeboog]

Hello,
this issue started occurring yesterday - my screen would go pitch black after some action while the monitor is still on.
For example, if I click on a link, it might just go pitch black. Turning the monitor off and on again would usually result in No Signal error. Sometimes instead of black it was completely white, and once it even was turquoise. The most recent occurrence, it went black then I turned the monitor off and on and then I saw screen but it was flickering intensely and very blurred and the PC didn't react to my actions (or it did but I couldn't see it).
[strike]Now the thing is, once it did it there was no coming back, only forced restart would undo it. [/strike]
This issue doesn't seem consistent meaning one time it can occur when I go to google.com and then I restart my computer and go there and it won't happen.

EDIT: I just had it happen to me and the screen went black but then after like 7 seconds it returned to normal again.

Specs:
BenQ XL2411
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970
Windows 10 64 bit
i5 4690 3.5 GHz
8GB RAM

 

[Paul NZ]

Whats the brand/model of the GPU?? If it's ASUS or Gigabyte use their driver. Not the drivers from the Nvidia site.

Some branded GPU's dont like Nvidia drivers. The card here. I have to use the ASUS drivers, because the latest Nvidia drivers either crash the browser, stop responding (the screen goes black for like 2 secs), then comes back on.

Or there are artifacts

 

[deeboog]

Whats the brand/model of the GPU?? If it's ASUS or Gigabyte use their driver. Not the drivers from the Nvidia site.

Some branded GPU's dont like Nvidia drivers. The card here. I have to use the ASUS drivers, because the latest Nvidia drivers either crash the browser, stop responding (the screen goes black for like 2 secs), then comes back on.

Or there are artifacts

Thing is, I used nvidia drivers up to this point and never had any issues so that doesn't seem correct.

 

[Paul NZ]

Anything's possible.

 

[deeboog]

Well, yes, thanks for the suggestion but if possible I'd be interested in different directions right now.

 

[Paincake1]

Have you tried another input cable for your display?

 

[deeboog]

Have you tried another input cable for your display?

Yes. I've done some tests since the last post and here are the results:
My brother has the same monitor so I could easily rule out possibility of source to the problem,
1) a. I tried using a different cable in my PC, problem remained.
b. I tried using my cable at his PC, it worked.
2) a. I tried using his monitor instead of mine, problem remained.
b. I tried using my monitor at his PC, it worked.

This leads me to two possibilities :
The DVI-I port of my PC is broken, or the disastrous scenario of a broken GPU.
With this information in mind, what would you guys suggest?
How would I go about replacing/fixing the seemingly broken port?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that
1)right now I'm not suffering this problem when the monitor is connected (with a DVI-I PORT) to the built in GPU in my processor (Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600).
2) I did a clean, fresh installation of the latest nvidia driver 376.33.

 

[Paincake1]

Have you tried another input cable for your display?

Yes. I've done some tests since the last post and here are the results:
My brother has the same monitor so I could easily rule out possibility of source to the problem,
1) a. I tried using a different cable in my PC, problem remained.
b. I tried using my cable at his PC, it worked.
2) a. I tried using his monitor instead of mine, problem remained.
b. I tried using my monitor at his PC, it worked.

This leads me to two possibilities :
The DVI-I port of my PC is broken, or the disastrous scenario of a broken GPU.
With this information in mind, what would you guys suggest?
How would I go about replacing/fixing the seemingly broken port?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that
1)right now I'm not suffering this problem when the monitor is connected (with a DVI-I PORT) to the built in GPU in my processor (Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600).
2) I did a clean, fresh installation of the latest nvidia driver 376.33.

i'd try using hdmi or displayport instead if you have one.

 

[deeboog]

Have you tried another input cable for your display?

Yes. I've done some tests since the last post and here are the results:
My brother has the same monitor so I could easily rule out possibility of source to the problem,
1) a. I tried using a different cable in my PC, problem remained.
b. I tried using my cable at his PC, it worked.
2) a. I tried using his monitor instead of mine, problem remained.
b. I tried using my monitor at his PC, it worked.

This leads me to two possibilities :
The DVI-I port of my PC is broken, or the disastrous scenario of a broken GPU.
With this information in mind, what would you guys suggest?
How would I go about replacing/fixing the seemingly broken port?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that
1)right now I'm not suffering this problem when the monitor is connected (with a DVI-I PORT) to the built in GPU in my processor (Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600).
2) I did a clean, fresh installation of the latest nvidia driver 376.33.

i'd try using hdmi or displayport instead if you have one.

I think HDMI doesn't allow 144Hz and my monitor nor my PC have a port for displayport so I'm out of luck in that regard :\
In any case, I'll look for the driver possiblity that was mentioned initially to see if that's the case if not I'm afraid we reach the conclusion my gpu is faulty, correct?

 

[deeboog]

Whats the brand/model of the GPU?? If it's ASUS or Gigabyte use their driver. Not the drivers from the Nvidia site.

Some branded GPU's dont like Nvidia drivers. The card here. I have to use the ASUS drivers, because the latest Nvidia drivers either crash the browser, stop responding (the screen goes black for like 2 secs), then comes back on.

Or there are artifacts

The brand of my GPU is EVGA, you think it's worth a try to wipe the driver and freshly install 376.33 from EVGA's site?
http://www.evga.com/support/download/

On a second look, it looks like the EVGA driver is exactly the same like the one I got from nvidia's site, so I guess that's a non issue, any other ideas?