Screen randomly freezes to solid colour

[nubki11a]

Hey all, I've got a really strange problem that I can't seem to solve whatever I try 🙁

Since about a month and a half, I've been having a strange issue with my computer where (almost always when I'm gaming) my screen turns to a random solid colour, often with little lines. It looks like this:

It usually occurs when I'm playing [url="mmohuts.com/review/league-of-legends]League of Legends[/url], always during a time when not a lot is happening on my screen (for instance when I'm buying items). I think it only happened once when I was browsing.

Sometimes it happens with only a half an hour interval and sometimes once in three hours.

When it happens, the LCD on my keyboard also freezes, but any music I have on or other audio will keep playing (it wont react when I press the play button on my keyboard or headset). The strange thing is that when I'm on Skype and it happens, I can still hear my friends talk and they can still hear me. As far as I know, the only thing I can do is hold the power button and reboot.

• I have reinstalled League of Legends.
• I have tried to connect an additional screen (which is connected to my motherboard, not my graphics card), but that just froze and I couldn't alt-tab or move my cursor to it. So it seems like it's not my main screen and less likely that it is my graphics card.
• I have installed the most recent drivers.
• I have Secure Erased my SSD with Windows and reinstalled Windows with new drivers etc.
• I have updated my SSD's firmware.
• I have checked my temperatures and they never get high when I play games, max. 60C.
• I have looked at the Windows Logs, but could't find anything asides some kind of WIM error that seemed to happen a lot.
• I have cleared dust out of my PC.
• I have reset the BIOS.

I am planning on connecting my secondary screen as main screen and see what happens. I'm also checking whether I can still shutdown my PC via the Start menu. If it still happens I will try to put my old nVidia 9600GT in my PC.


Specs:

Motherboard: ASRock Extreme 3 Gen 3
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @3.3 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD 6870, at stock speeds.
Power Supply: Corsair TX650 v2
RAM: G.Skill RipjawsX
Screen: NEC LCD22WV
SSD : Crucial M4 64GB
HDD : Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB
Keyboard: Logitech G15

The computer is about a year and a half old.

Does anyone have any idea what it could be? Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[Ketchup]

That looks like an issue with the screen or the video cable.

 

[nubki11a]

Just the thing with the screen is, is that the secondary screen also froze, so I'm not sure whether the primary screen (that would be broken) can cause the secondary screen to fail aswell. As for the cable suggestion, I'll try that tomorrow, thanks!

Also, what about the possibilty that it is unstable VRAM of my graphics card?

 

[Ketchup]

Just the thing with the screen is, is that the secondary screen also froze, so I'm not sure whether the primary screen (that would be broken) can cause the secondary screen to fail aswell. As for the cable suggestion, I'll try that tomorrow, thanks!

Also, what about the possibilty that it is unstable VRAM of my graphics card?

OK, didn't get the part about the second screen the first go-around. Probably the card since it sounds like you ruled out drivers. Could be cables, but again if you are running two, doubtful.

 

[nubki11a]

Thanks for your replies. I'm gonna try to reproduce it once more and see if I can still shut my PC down via keyboard, because I think it might be the motherboard too (though I don't really know a lot about motherboards and I am not sure whether it can even be the mobo).

On another forum someone suggested that I increase the voltage because the VRAM of my card is unstable, so I'll try that, together with using a new cable.

 

[Ketchup]

On another forum someone suggested that I increase the voltage because the VRAM of my card is unstable, so I'll try that, together with using a new cable.

What voltage would that be? the slot?

 

[nubki11a]

The voltage of my graphics card.

 

[Ketchup]

The voltage of my graphics card.

I was just unclear, because I think you are talking about the voltage that goes through the pci-e port on the motherboard, which you can set in the motherboard bios, but should only need to be changed if it is incorrect for your card, or the power supply is sending it different voltage than you have set. I have never had to do this, and judging by your system specs, I don't see this needing to be done unless the board or power supply is doing something wrong.

 

[nubki11a]

I don't know, I think the voltage that you can adjust when overclocking (the PCI-E slot's voltage I guess). I could understand that increasing the voltage would make the card more stable. Though I must say that it has only happened twice since I reinstalled now, it didn't happen at all yesterday! So I'm not sure but it seems like it isn't a problem anymore (for now) ^_^