So a few weeks ago my PC screen glitched while I was playing a game--turned to straight lines, then went black. Upon restart, there were two vertical lines on the screen, and then the screen went black upon loading Windows. I restarted again and went into the BIOS settings, resetting everything to default (just to try it--I hadn't altered the settings to start with). That seemed to do it, up until yesterday, and it's the same thing.
I borrowed a monitor to make sure that wasn't the problem. It isn't; same issue. Two red/orange vertical lines in BIOS screen, goes black when Windows loads.
Here's the weird thing: when Windows loads and the screen goes black, the PC stops recognizing the Corsair KBM. Or at least, the RGB lights go out completely, and if the mouse or keyboard is responding at all I can't tell since there's no video output, and no sound.
Thoughts on what the issue might be? Pics linked here. It's an older PC but serves my purposes fine. I really don't want to pay a ton--even replacing the GPU with the exact same model is costly, and the same mobo isn't all that cheap either.
GPU: AMD R9 280X
MOBO: Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z
I'm not seeing where that mb has integrated graphics, so it's kind of going to be hard to diagnose if it's the video card or not without onboard graphics. Unless you've got an old video card laying around, that is. That's the simplest way to test if it's the video card.
And, yeah, GPUs are absurdly overpriced right now, but the prices are slowly coming down.
Have you tried a driver wipe for the GPU and reinstall with fresh drivers?
"Or at least, the RGB lights go out completely, and if the mouse or keyboard is responding at all I can't tell since there's no video output, and no sound."
Well, my go to in that situation is to hit Caps Lock or Num Lock and see if it lights up. Problem is if the RBG lights are running on the same power or whatever as the Caps Lock then that won't tell you anything.
If the mouse is receiving power then you should be able to see the laser/light on the bottom of it.
It's sounding like a motherboard thing to me, based on potential multiple power losses. You could try upgrading the Bios on the mb, but I have a feeling you can't trust it enough right now to do that.
Are you able to boot to Windows Safe Mode at least?
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
Thanks! No onboard graphics on it, but using Start and Repair under Advanced Options got it going again. I'm pretty sure I can make it happen again by playing a game--another thing that makes me suspect it's the video card--, but the KBM issue is really strange. I'll see if I can find a friend with an old system laying around that I can borrow a GPU from to test it.
"Come, amigo, throw away your mind." --Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
Keep an eye on the temps for that GPU. I know I had to replace the fans and thermal paste on my 270x a few years back because it was pushing 90C consistently, and pulling it apart and replacing the fans got me back in the 70's. If you've been cooking it for a long time, you might be burning it out.
If you haven't replaced the paste before, it's almost certainly dried out and acting as an insulator by now. Paste tends to be considered good for about 5 years, that card is somewhere around 8 years old. And factory paste generally isn't quite as good as something like MX-4.
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Good call! It started behaving again, but I haven't played any graphically intensive games since then. I'll try that with temp monitoring.
"Come, amigo, throw away your mind." --Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano