VGA monitor going blank during 3-d game play on new computer

Hiya,

With the help of a friend, I finished building a new computer this weekend.

The problem is that the monitor just shuts down randomly about 2-10 minutes into playing any 3-d games. The monitor goes black, and in a couple of seconds, the green light next to the power switch starts flashing.

This has happened in the exact same fashion for three unrelated games all of which are 3D based. So far, non-gaming computing (internet etc) is going fine.

The monitor is recycled from my old computer, and it may be the problem:

1) The display driver is from 2001. It is a Gateway VX900, (SVGA) and the Windows XP driver update did not find anything newer. ANY ideas on safe/reliable sources of updated drivers? (Gateway.com was not forthcoming...)

The specs of the new system:

Windows XP operating system Home Edition

Asus A8N-SLI motherboard
Athalon AMD 64 3800+ CPU
XFX nVIDIA SLI GeForce 6600 GT graphics card
***This is a DVI-out card, I had to use a DVI to VGA conversion plug to connect it to my monitor***
2 Gig ram


What else might you need to know?

3d gaming stresses many parts of the system. are you sure you're looking at a monitor problem and not something else, like a video card cooling problem for example? attempt lowering your refresh rates and/or screen resolution to take some stress off the monitor. if no problems exist within your box, the monitor is faulty.

reply whether or not your numlock key triggers the led on your keyboard during one of these blackouts.

also: when does the monitor come back?

PS > the dvi to vga converter is not a problem.

Current monitor settings are at 60 Hertz / 800 X 600 resolution / 32 bit color

Those are the settings under which the problems occurred, I have not yet tried the games with lower settings.

Another thread mentioned monitors self-protecting by shutting off under certain conditions, so I will try lowering those.

Numlock key: Once the monitor has shut off, the numlock light will not come on. The CPU/system appears to still be running though - case fans a cpu fan run, system lights are on.

The monitor comes back only when I manually reboot the system. Ctrl/alt/delete will not reboot the system, I have to use the reset button.


Also, if it matters, the games I've had the problem on are Armored Fist 3 demo, Tachyon demo, and full version of Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought it was a Pirates problem until the exact same pattern occurred on the other games.

Thanks for help by the way!

:wave: Hello & Welcome to TechSpot :wave:

Try following this thread as it's about (somewhat) the same problem... And from your description, I think you'll be able to benefit, especially from the memtest part...

Thanks Garibaldi

So far downing the Color to 16 bit did not help.

Playtesting an older 2D game led to smooth game play - playtesting across more 3D games led to the same pattern.

If the numlock happens to be on, the light stays on after the monitor goes dead. The monitor cannot be turned back on until the computer is totally rebooted.

I have not changed refresh rates yet or tried the memory test, will post when I get results.

Thanks all.

Tlaloc

your monitor is fine. your computer is hanging, causing your troubles. because 3-d gaming stresses many components, it is very likely that your computer is overheating. attempt running the case with the side panel(s) removed, and then run your 3-d games.

how many fans have you got in that case?

Update:

Lowering the refresh rates and other vid settings has done the trick (for now, tested across two games so far).

Following up on a few loose ends though:

I have one front intake fan, a side intake, a rear exhaust, a motherboard chipset fan, a CPU fan (with a Big Typhoon on order), and the graphics card and power source (500w) both have their own fans. I'm keeping the case off the floor and out of direct sunlight for good measure. The case is an Ultra dragon something or other full tower, using almost all rounded cables (one is still flat).


Thank you to everyone who responded so fast. What a great community. :hotbounce

I will check back on this thread to see if there are any other questions I can answer to provide more complete documentation of this experience for future questioners, and to let you know if the problem comes back.

RATS!!! :hotouch:

I spoke too soon!!

The issue is still present - the only variable that has changed (that I know of) is length of play time. This implicates vid card heat, probably, right?


Gah.

run the box with your side panels removed and reply whether or not you still get the problem.

Run with side panel open, from a totally cold start (first time turning on the computer all day), led to about 20 mins of 3D gaming before the problem occurred again.


I looked all over my system and have not found any in-built reporting systems or utilities for power consumption or temperature, yet I am a noob, so I might have overlooked something obvious. Then again, I'm not THAT much of a noob, and I did look for an hour through settings, taskbar items, installed programs, and the control panel.

Thus: Anyone wanna suggest free utilities I might try?


I have yet to run Garibaldi's suggested memory checking software - will get on that soon .

Tla

place a large fan next to your open box, blowing into it on a high setting. how long before your pc hangs?

me too

After much searching, this sounds exactly like my problem, man I hope something works for you Tlaloc, so I can somehow try it. It became progressively worse over a week or so, first only during gaming, and then outside of gaming. Opened it up, blew a fan on it, no difference, so it's not an overheating problem. Then I brought it in for a diagnostic. Everything checked out fine, they couldn't duplicate the problem.

It was suggested it was a power problem (Brown-outs), so I set everything on its own, even turned off the nearby fridge. Well that worked for three days. Turned off the TV, it worked again for a couple of days. That may be coincidence in hindsight.

The reason I'm posting is that it's gotten to the point that the monitor hardly stays on long enough to get to the "Pentium Inside" screen, which is first to display. I moved to another room, hooked up another monitor, managed to get that to last about 4 minutes, during which time I reduced the refresh rate to 60 Hz, but it still crapped out. I wanted to try reverting to old drivers to try that out, but now I can't- basically I can't even troubleshoot anymore. Just a heads-up, Tlaloc. I hope you can resolve your problem before it gets to where mine is now.

-Tab

:wave: Hello & Welcome to TechSpot Taber :wave:

What you describe sounds like a faulty PSU to me... Have you tried using a different one?
Also, how does it behave when you've only got cpu, ram and videocard in the machine (disconnect harddrives, CD/DVD-rom/RW's, sound cards etc both from power cables and IDE/SATA cables)?

Lastly, how hot are the cables that connect the pc to the power lines? Room temp, or hotter?

Sorry Tlaloc, no new ideas today... :-/

I had the exact same problem 2 years ago when I built my new computer with a 9800 pro card. My computer would freeze when I started playing Halo or in the middle of some other games. I reinstalled windows, reinstalled drivers and the problem disappeared. I still dont know what the problem was but I dont have it anymore. Unlike your case, it did not happen every single time either. The monitor would just randomly turn off during playtime and I couldn't do anything about it.

I dont think it is a power supply or overheating issue because I didn't change my hardware. It is still a puzzle to me and I don't know exactly what fixed the issue.

Updates and ... unconfirmed progress

Heya, copying an update to you just in case it jars an idea.

Hi all, thanks for the continued support. I have had some bad things happen irl, so I have not been on the ball in chasing down this issue this week, but I have not given up. One problem was that I lost internet connection until next week, so that's a slow down.

A friend suggested I borrow a monitor to rule out my monitor as the actual cause. I have no friends with independent monitors right now - only one that has a laptop. I'm exploring options like borrowing one from work or a neighbor.

Another friend found documentation suggesting that the newest XFX vid card drivers were giving people problems. I checked, and I have an older driver, ruled that out.

A tiny new alteration to the pattern emerged in that the last crash was accompanied by a double or triple loop of the most recent sound effect before the whole system went quiet and dark - except for mobo light and fans. I think this adds to the suspicion that the problem is in the system not the monitor?

I've done some other suggested stuff, including running a heat/voltage/fanspeed monitor on the system through some tests. Unfortunately it does not monitor the graphics card, which is where I suspect the problem to be at this point (because of the results that follow). No heat monitor was included in my XFX installation CD, and I'll have to wait til I get internet at home before I can get an online utility.

Through testing, the CPU / MB heat stays within tolerances, so do voltages. The Mobo fan speed is WAY high, according to its suggested max (6000 rpm), it is sitting at 8800 rpm nearly always, even though the mobo heat appears to be significantly below tolerance.

Also, by suggestion, I ran a BOX FAN, as in, a 26 inch fan, right into my case to supercharge airflow. This tends to drop CPU temps fast after I quit gaming, but does not change the max it hits while gaming is ongoing.

The basic monitor-quit problem, as of the end of this week, with the fan blowing into the case (not a long term solution), is not showing up in any games but Pirates of the Caribbean now. { puke: This is not at all a reliable sample!}

I played each of the other games (6 games, all 3-D, different developers) for about 20 minutes, from start to finish of at least one mission, logging into and out of the games normally, thereby experiencing all files and processes that might have been causing the crashes before (Ruled Out?) Ordinarily the problem would have shown itself in at least one of the games. Total CPU up time was at least an hour each time.

If PotC is run after I have played a while, it crashes early, in the first 5 mins, maybe even at the log-in menu before serious gaming and 3D processing has started.

This morning, with a cold start up and the box fan, PotC ran fine for 15+ mins until the ship ran into a storm, engaging the awesome graphics storm engine (or at least the first 1.99 seconds was awesome). I suspect that might have put it over the edge, but it could be coincidence.

It's maddening that I've been so busy that I cannot run really reliable replications on tests, so I attach caution to everything I write here.

Here's a little problem that might be related:

When we first installed and got the system up and running, Windows XP found some hardware that it tried to find drivers for - four items I think. At the time we were just trying to get basic computer operations working, so I had XP ignore those. Since this problem cropped up I went back to find them in Hardware Manager, and they all map onto the XFX graphics card - even though the graphics card itself is recognized and installed. I do not understand this - is Windows not properly understanding components of my graphics card?

Any help is welcome!

Tla

i also suspect the graphics card. is it still possible to return it as defective? to rule out the rest of the system, try running prime95 for a while. prime95 stresses the motherboard and cpu, causing great heat there but does not involve the graphics card. reply what happens when the prime95 test has been running for longer than 20 mins.

Update:

6/9

Problem consistently absent in all games but Pirates of the Caribbean and Medieval Total War (which totally sucks, cause that game ran on my 7 year old system fine ). However, I have not installed many new games, seeing as what's the point in spending $$ on games that might not run.

6/10ish

Removed zip and old floppy drive, rearranged cables to give better airflow (all round cables).

Installed two more fans - double front drawing in, double rear flowing out, plus mobo, CPU, GPU, power, and side panel fans.

6/14

Just got Internet back.

Downloaded prime95

42 mins of torture testing (while I was surfing the net no less) with 0 errors and 0 warnings, CPU temp consistent at 51-52 celcius, mobo chipset 30-31 consistently.


Will try Pirates and Medieval TW when I get a chance and post here.

Found my NVIDIA GPU (vid card) utility, it was cleverly hidden under the name NVIDIA temperature utility or something cleverly obvious like that! ( :knock

Unlike the mobo / CPU monitor, it does not log its values ( or at least I have not figured out how to make it log them ) so I can't see the LAST data point before a crash.

Breaking away from a 3D game with alt-tab I can sample the GPU temps, 46-47 at worst, relatively consistent across several minutes, with Mechwarrior IV Vengence, in full super high detail combat mode, things are flowing fine, and BAM, same old problem occurs.