Solved black screen of death or what?

sharifal · May 12, 2010

alright, where to begin. I've reached a dead end with this problem and I cant determine what could possibly be causing this issue. so any feed back on any level is valued and appreciated.

I have not had any issues for probably a few months now. after the mini dump problem everything was fine once i had corrected the issue. now the problem im facing is black screens of death ( at least I think its a bsod). the problem presents it self while playing certain games. lately its happened while playing world of warcraft.

this is what happens; I start playing wow, after a certain period of time the screen locks up and turns black. while this is occurring the sound pushes out the last bit of music/sound through the speakers. the system does not reset, the only way i can get it running again is by hard booting it. once I have rebooted and entered windows the system has no logs or events of the problem ever happening. not even an error message shows up on why it crashed. So i end up searching for the dump file and no file is recorded as well.

so what could possibly be causing this?

cpu: quad Intel 6600
vid: 8800 gts 640mb evga
sound : creative xtreme music card
mb: abit board ( cant remember model)
ram: corsair dominator ram dd2
os: vista 32 pro

sharifal · May 12, 2010

also I've checked the power settings, memory, and so on. ive done ram tests, video card tests and stability tests. no problems have been registered nor have they presented them selves during tests. some people that I have talked to said it could be due to gpu over heating. I checked all the temperature and nothing shows up as being to high.

wheelsmith · May 12, 2010

have you run the wow repair tool, and cleaned out the cache folders, updated directx and the video card drivers?

sharifal · May 12, 2010

well I've updated the video card drivers. im currently using direct x 10 because im using windows vista pro. im unable to upgrade from 10 to 11. at least from what i saw, i could be wrong.

but would the video card drives cause that sorta problem?

thanks again for your help on this.

Katokato · May 12, 2010

Never hurts to run sfc /scannow from the elevated command prompt.

Try reinstalling your drivers. Does this problem happen with other games, if not then it is a problem with the actual game that you are playing?

sharifal · May 12, 2010

Katokato said:
Never hurts to run sfc /scannow from the elevated command prompt.

Try reinstalling your drivers. Does this problem happen with other games, if not then it is a problem with the actual game that you are playing?

this problem doesn't repeat it self over short periods of time. in fact it happens clear out of the blue. you are right, it could very well be the game it self, but I want to make sure that its nothing else because this is some what odd that out of no where it just started happening. I started playing back in march and i started having this problem since last month. I havnt changed any settings or anything for that matter. unless a registry issue is causing this? im clueless.

sharifal · May 13, 2010

so far I havnt had an issue since last night. the sfc scan did find corrupted files. it repaired most of them, some however were unable to be repaired. so we will see if it fixed the issue and if not i might need to do a reinstall?

stoneys-nutz · May 13, 2010

Hello sharifal,
If the scan found errors, you may need to run it more than once to fix them all.
Run the scan again and see if that helps.
Good luck and post your results.

sharifal · May 27, 2010

sorry it took me so long to respond. I wanted to see if the problem reoccurs and it has been.

I did the scans as suggested and it keeps repairing files. but still certain files are unable to be repaired for certain reasons. a common one is that they don't exist.

also, I cant update direct x to dx11 because im still using vista, unless anyone knows different. graphics drivers are to date. I had read in nivida forums and wow forums about power supply not pushing enough juice resulting in black screens of death. but, its bit odd that I haven't had this problem before and now im having nothing but bsod. so is it possible that the power supply is slowly dieing off and not pushing enough juice out?

any other ideas are welcome. thanks again for helping me with my issue.

DravenWraith · May 27, 2010

Couple of questions, is your PC an (On out of the Box PC), that’s the readymade PC’s that are offered at major chains for a low price. If so did you upgrade the graphics card to the 8800 GTS? If so did you upgrade your power supply? OOTB PC ships with only a 350 or 400watt power supply, the 8800GTS at minimum requires a 450 to 500 watts, it sounds like your problem is in the power supply, check the Wattage on your PC power supply, really with the 6600 Quad core and 8800 GTS you want as a minimum around 600Watts.

Katokato · May 27, 2010

vista sp2 supports dx11 i think. someone back it up plz?

sharifal · May 27, 2010

well I built my pc. so its not out of the box. I believe i do have at least a 650 power supply. cant remember its nearly 4 years old. but i plan on changing my vid card atm with a evga 8800gt card that my brother used a few months back. ill get back to you about the power supply as soon as possible.

sharifal · May 27, 2010

well I just checked my psu and it turns out i was wrong. its a 520watt. which could be the problem. right now im going to try this vid card and if it occurs again this week then i will possibly order a new psu.

Katokato · May 27, 2010

it really depends on how many amps you have on the rail that powers your gpu's (i think thats the 12v).

i doubt that the PSU could be the problem.

sharifal · May 27, 2010

well on the psu it says 520w 12v so i take it that the 12v should be enough for the gpu.

Katokato · May 28, 2010

12v is the current potential given in one amp... amps is the amount of a set voltage that a psu can give out.

for example

if i have 20 amps at 12 volts, that means that i can deal a total of 240W (ampsXvolt) on that 12v rail

here is more information: Compatibility issues for ATX power supplies and motherboards

sharifal · Jun 30, 2010

turns out it was my video card. havnt had a black screen of death since

macoy12 · Sep 14, 2010

sharifal said:
turns out it was my video card. havnt had a black screen of death since

hey what do you mean "turns out"
you mean , you already solved your black screen?

i'm asking this because i got the same problem now!
i really wanted to fix my pc.
i was playing too then my monitor turns off,(like sleepmode) but looking my power button on pc is on but the sound was like repeating..errorr..then sound stopped.
after that i tried to on my pc and wait when to go black screen again, its random.
now i need help how did you fix it?changing video card?

help please,
thanks

Smurfyy · Sep 14, 2010

macoy12 said:
hey what do you mean "turns out"
you mean , you already solved your black screen?

i'm asking this because i got the same problem now!
i really wanted to fix my pc.
i was playing too then my monitor turns off,(like sleepmode) but looking my power button on pc is on but the sound was like repeating..errorr..then sound stopped.
after that i tried to on my pc and wait when to go black screen again, its random.
now i need help how did you fix it?changing video card?

help please,
thanks

Hey, welcome to Vista Forums! :party:

The last post on this topic was 1/7/2010, so a couple of months ago...
Please start a new thread in the proper area of the forum, I'd say here; Crashes and Debugging - Vista Forums
Hope this helps, and you get your problems sorted!
Daniel

Solved black screen of death or what?

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