Solid black or vertically striped gray screen crash in Windows 10 a few minutes after system start

[pirx_the_pilot]

Hey guys! The situation is as follows. My PC hac recently started crashing to a solid black or vertically striped gray screen with no further reaction to keyboard and mouse input. It first crashed when I was trying to run For Honor beta. During its installation I noticed that some video drivers (DirectX most likely) were also updated/installed. Might be a coincidence that the crashes started after this.

Afterwards the crashes (same solid black or vertically striped gray screen) would occur in any graphics-intensive game a minute or so after it had been launched. Later on my PC stopped turning on at all and I noticed that the UPS had died. After I plugged the PC directly into the wall socket it started working again but it would now crash to a black screen at the desktop even without any load on the GPU. I tried removing the GPU and the issue was resolved. But hey, I want the GPU in there, so I did a clean OS installation thinking the problem might be with the GPU drivers. It didn't help and the PC is running on integrated graphics right now and will still crash after a few minutes at the desktop if I try to run it with the GPU installed.

By the way, all the fans keep spinning during the crash, even the GPU ones, while the reset button stops working so I have to press and hold the power button in order to turn off the PC.

I have a few ideas what the problem might be:

- the PSU has deteriorated and is unable to provide enough power to the GPU;
- the GPU is faulty and cannot bear any load;
- the GPU drivers are broken (but I did a clean install so it shouldn't be the issue now).

My PC:

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU
Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz

RAM
2x8 GB Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3

Motherboard
ASUS P8B75-M (LGA1155)

Graphics
MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming 2G

Storage
111GB OCZ-VERTEX3 (SSD)
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-00V1A0

PSU
Seasonic S12II-520 (520W)

Display
Iiyama PLX2483H

Optical Drives
Optiarc DVD RW AD-7280S

Audio
Steinberg CI1 (external)

Will appreciate any help with this issue.

 

[Lutfij]

Is the PSU as old as the processor platform? If so then it's your PSU showing signs of age and an inability to provide the necessary power. I would like to ask though, since you're on Windows 10, have you ruled out a corrupt installer by recreating your bootable USB installer?

 

[YaBoiStrom]

I'm having the exact same issue. I'm also using a Radeon 270 card. Crashed with stripes playing siege and now I either get a black screen on start up or windows fails to launch properly.

I'm thinking that this is a driver issue and not a technical issue. If we're both having exactly the same issue then it has to be a driver problem most likely caused by either Direct X or a new driver for our cards. I'm unsure at this point. But it is nice to see someone else with the exact same issue. I'm with you bro.

 

[pirx_the_pilot]

Is the PSU as old as the processor platform? If so then it's your PSU showing signs of age and an inability to provide the necessary power. I would like to ask though, since you're on Windows 10, have you ruled out a corrupt installer by recreating your bootable USB installer?

I did create a new installation USB drive for the clean install, so I don't think it was corrupt in any way. Besides, the system is running fine with the basic embedded graphics, nothing is causing issues apart from the discrete GPU.

 

[pirx_the_pilot]

I'm having the exact same issue. I'm also using a Radeon 270 card. Crashed with stripes playing siege and now I either get a black screen on start up or windows fails to launch properly.

I'm thinking that this is a driver issue and not a technical issue. If we're both having exactly the same issue then it has to be a driver problem most likely caused by either Direct X or a new driver for our cards. I'm unsure at this point. But it is nice to see someone else with the exact same issue. I'm with you bro.

Yeah, seems to be a driver problem. I've been investigating this issue for a while now, searching through forums and the web, and found this thread on AMD forums (still not finished reading it). It seems A LOT of people have encountered the very same problem with the new drivers. I will try all the solutions in that thread and post here is something works. You might try it out as well in case you haven't yet : )

 

[YaBoiStrom]

I replaced my AMD card with an old Nvidia one and it works now.

Either there's a fault with AMD drivers right now or the card isn't compatible with the latest DirectX drivers. I'm unsure. But for now I'll use this 8 year old Nvidia card.

Such a shame. Right before the release of for honor. I can barely churn out enough FPS for minecraft with this GPU.

Anyway, I would recommend switching to Nvidia. Never had a problem with them and always seem to hit issues with AMD.

Best of luck!

 

[pirx_the_pilot]

I replaced my AMD card with an old Nvidia one and it works now.

Either there's a fault with AMD drivers right now or the card isn't compatible with the latest DirectX drivers. I'm unsure. But for now I'll use this 8 year old Nvidia card.

Such a shame. Right before the release of for honor. I can barely churn out enough FPS for minecraft with this GPU.

Anyway, I would recommend switching to Nvidia. Never had a problem with them and always seem to hit issues with AMD.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the update! I will try to revive it, and if nothing works I will switch to greeNvidia.

 

[Lutfij]

The discrete GPU mixed your system will draw more power than the system without a discrete GPU so logically if your PSU is as old as the processor/platform then the maximum power output of the unit has diminished. It's likely that that is what's causing the problem but if you have a number of factors as to why it's causing the issue, it's best to eliminate them one by one.

Now as per the drivers, you could try and use DDU to remove any and/or all remnants of the AMD drivers but when you've mentioned that the system was unresponsive this, to me, indicates that your PSU would need a replacement. To that end you didn't answer the first question I posed...