Black screen crashes while gaming, no BSOD

[SonOfCrusader76]

In the past few weeks, I've been getting a lot of black screen crashes while playing games - not all games - it seems to be limited to games involving Steam. No BSOD, just a black screen while the game's sound continues, followed by a buzzing sound. At first, I thought it was an issue with the Shogun 2 demo, but then it happened with Empire and the newly installed Napoleon demo.

I'm wondering if it's being caused by some of the newer AMD drivers - since I reinstalled Windows 7, I went straight to the latest drivers. I'm going to go back to some older ones and see if it still happens. Temperatures for GPU/CPU seem fine - it's not as if the fans are howling their heads off before the crashes.

If anyone's got any other ideas, it would be great if you could post them.

None of that worked - and it's now happening with non Steam games as well - it happened just now with Call of Duty World At War.

The temperatures seem to be fine - I've had GPUs overheat on me before, but it usually throws up a message, like this:



Or at the very least, a BSOD. Now, all I get is this black screen - shortly after that, the sound cuts out as well and produces a continuous buzzing sound.

Can anyone help? Is there a file I could post that would be of use and if so, where can I access it?

[irishron]

Are AMD/ATI's sound drivers loaded along with other sound drivers?

If so, uninstall them in Device Manager. They are conflicting with your Audigy drivers.

[SonOfCrusader76]

OK, thanks. I'll check that out.

I have: ATI High Definition Audio Device and High Definition Audio Device - should I uninstall both of them?

[irishron]

If you are playing ETW and/or NTW, both.

[SonOfCrusader76]

OK, I uninstalled both of them, but the non ATI one reinstalled itself on reboot - but now I'm going to grab a game that was causing trouble before and see what happens. If I can get a good lengthy session in, all should be good.

Edit: If that test goes OK, I'll give Shogun II demo another go.

[SonOfCrusader76]

OK, I tried uninstalling the non ATI one as well, but as I said, it reinstalled itself. Now, there are two instances of it. I tried disabling them both instead of uninstalling, but CoD 5 WAW still did the black screen thing. I'm going to try a few other games to see if this is limited to certain games. One thing's for sure, yesterday I was able to play Rome TW (plus RS II) for hours without a problem - I'll give that a try tomorrow - if it's doing the same thing, then something must have fundamentally changed.

PCs, eh? Bloody hell.

[irishron]

You can install ATI's drivers without the CCC.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Do you think CCC could be causing the problem? I had a look at the Event Viewer and there are many 'Event 41, Kernel-Power' messages under the 'Critical' section. Taking this into account, is it still likely to be something to do with the conflicting sound drivers? As I said, I disabled all of them except the Audigy one - doesn't that have the same effect as uninstalling them?

I had a long session on Medieval II Third Age mod last night and it ran fine - not one single crash - I don't know why this is only happening with some games. If it was just Steam games, I could try reinstalling Steam, but it isn't confined to that area.

Is there a file I can upload from the Event Viewer that might shed more light on what's going on? This is getting really annoying - and as discussed in my other thread, all these incorrect shutdowns can't be good for the system.

Anyway, for now I'll try installing the drivers without CCC.

[SonOfCrusader76]

OK, I've done that - just had a two hour session on F1 2010, which is probably my most system intensive game - the fans are at their loudest when playing it in any case; not one crash of any kind (apart from a few on the track. ). So, I think we can rule out a hardware problem - now I'm going to see what Call of Duty World at War does, and then the 'ultimate' test - Shogun II's 'system crippling' campaign map.

Edit: Call of Duty fell over after about fifteen minutes. I don't understand what's going on here - how is it F1 2010 can run for two hours without a murmur and other games are falling over after a few minutes?

Maybe some games don't like Microsoft's High Definition Audio Device - how can I stop it installing itself and just leave my Audigy 4 to take care of the sound (after all, that is what I bought it for.)

Call of Duty and all drivers are fully up to date.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Hmm. It just happened with Mafia II as well. It usually happens quickly, not after a long session of play. But as I said, a game like F1 2010 ran flawlessly for the best part of two hours!

[Heinz Guderian]

you need MSI Afterburner. I had the same problem as you for many months. It was with an ATI HD4670. Let me know if you want to know more

[SonOfCrusader76]

It's worth a try, so I downloaded it. When you were having the problem, did it affect every game, or were there some that ran OK? With me, there are several that are running fine, including F1 2010.

[Heinz Guderian]

It's worth a try, so I downloaded it. When you were having the problem, did it affect every game, or were there some that ran OK? With me, there are several that are running fine, including F1 2010.

Exactly the same as me. Some games were perfect. Others (including Empire) would black screen on me. Now whats your max Core Clock (in Mhz) and Memory Clock when you start afterburner?

[SonOfCrusader76]

Exactly the same as me. Some games were perfect. Others (including Empire) would black screen on me. Now whats your max Core Clock (in Mhz) and Memory Clock when you start afterburner?

I haven't done it yet - I'm in the middle of a MTW2 Lord of the Rings session - which has been going for two hours. I'll give it a try later and report back - thanks for your help. Oh, by the way, my GPU isn't overclocked or anything like that - can Afterburner still help given that?

[Heinz Guderian]

I haven't done it yet - I'm in the middle of a MTW2 Lord of the Rings session - which has been going for two hours. I'll give it a try later and report back - thanks for your help. Oh, by the way, my GPU isn't overclocked or anything like that - can Afterburner still help given that?

no problem. Its the exact opposite problem to being overclocked. Try setting your core and memory values down about 30 to 40 MHz each. Some cards fluke their benchmark tests. Setting the values down a bit will hopefully prevent the black screen with no noticeable loss of performance. If things are good, try playing the game with slightly higher values the next time. Then you'll know the sweet spot for a game. its different for different games.

Let me know how it went. If i forget to post here, feel free to wall post me bruder.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Exactly the same as me. Some games were perfect. Others (including Empire) would black screen on me. Now whats your max Core Clock (in Mhz) and Memory Clock when you start afterburner?

Core Clock: 625 Mhz
Memory Clock: 1004Mhz

[SonOfCrusader76]

I took each value down 30 MHz, but the game (Mafia II) still black screened, although it seemed to last longer than before - I'm going to try taking another 10Mhz off.

Edit: Nope, didn't work.

Edit: I knocked another 30Mhz off each one, and Mafia II played for nearly two hours - then I quit - so looks like that might have helped with Mafia II at least; thanks a lot mate. The one that's been acting like a real retard though is Shogun II demo - keeps crashing on the campaign map; maybe this has sorted that out as well.

What's best now - leave it alone, or nudge it up 5 or 10 Mhz at a time until it starts playing up again? Maybe I should just leave it be. Regarding Afterburner - can't I do the same thing with ATI's CCC utility - that way it won't keep asking me whether it wants to be activated at startup. Have some rep on me.