Black screening after playing a game for only 5 minutes

Mazrim

Posts: 139   +0
I play Grim Dawn, an ARPG from Crate Entertainment. The game doesn't run on a vid card, but uses your CPU for graphics and rendering.

After playing this game for only a few minutes, my screen goes black, but the game itself you can still hear in the background, and you can still interact with objects, monsters, etc., you just can't SEE anything now that the screen's gone black.

I thought for a while that it was my CPU temps going too high, so I decided to not only completely clean out the cooler , fin by fin, but also I decided to re-apply new thermal paste as well. Good thing I did, because I found that only 1/2 the old paste was in contact with my cooler.

So I reassembled my rig, fired it up, and now I get MUCH better temps, now @ 36-46C down from 62-68C, but I still blackscreen after only a couple of minutes of play.

I looked in event viewer, and got this for the 3 events leading up to and right after the blackscreen:

FIRST, I got:
A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (4)

SECOND, I got:
The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was disabled by a running application

Then THIRD, I got:

Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1:
P2:
P3:
P4:
P5:
P6:
P7:
P8:
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WD-20171202-1630.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-1348020-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER933A.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\Kernel_0_0_cab_19b0933a

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 12ccb92a-d7a8-11e7-8549-305a3a7e85f9
Report Status: 4

I'd LOVE to tell my friends how awesome this game is, but I can't until I figure out why this is happening. No one on the forums is able to help, since they believe that it's simply a driver issue, but following full updates on bios, gfx card, the game itself, etc., that to me is a moot point.

Anyone able to lend some help with this?
 
Hi Here's what Leo says about your problem. https://askleo.com/why_do_i_get_a_black_screen_on_my_computer_after_a_while/
Let us know how things go!

Let me address each of the items from the link:

Overheating: From my original post:

I thought for a while that it was my CPU temps going too high, so I decided to not only completely clean out the cooler , fin by fin, but also I decided to re-apply new thermal paste as well. Good thing I did, because I found that only 1/2 the old paste was in contact with my cooler. So I reassembled my rig, fired it up, and now I get MUCH better temps, now @ 36-46C down from 62-68C, but I still blackscreen after only a couple of minutes of play.

So yes, I have addressed possible overheating.

Hardware Failure: I have also thought of this, but if this were the case, then why would only this ONE GAME (Grim Dawn) cause some sort of hardware failure? I play many, many other games that are CPU and GPU intensive(I.e.: Doom, Crysis, Warframe), with no problems. EVER. Again -- This is not happening ANY other time. Only when playing Grim Dawn. All drivers are up to date. Power supply checks out fine on my voltmeter. I have also tried to revert to older drivers to see if any of them cause an issue, and I get the same result.


Malware: I've had this problem ever since I started playing Grim Dawn when this was a brand new rig, and the only sites visited were to get the appropriate drivers. I highly doubt any form of malware is going to tell one specific game to stop my display from working.

Speaking of display: I have gone through 5 different displays of varying levels of quality and different brands. I have also tried three different CPUS. Same results every time.

Normal behavior?: NO.
 
Hi! I have no idea why your having your problem. I only post what I find on the internet. Why do you think your issue only happens when playing one particular game. Go on their forum and ask them why your having your issue.;) That's the best I can do for you.
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/
 
Requirements per Steam:
"MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 10
  • Processor: x86 compatible 2.3GHz or faster processor (Intel 2nd generation core I-series or equivalent)
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series or ATI Radeon X800 series or better
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 5 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
  • Additional Notes: 4GB of memory is required to host multiplayer games"
While game may rely heavily on CPU, it does have video requirement. What do you have? What driver are you using?

Once it tries to "disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (4)", there is a conflict. However, it may be something which you load on boot (a service) or malware - and I cannot tell. I'm guessing when I say the Grim Dawn requests ntoskrnl to clobber Desktop Window Manager as a method for controlling the entire display screen so it has exclusivity, but some other service or program has something to say so it tries to start it up again - with disastrous result.

It might be thermal issue on the video card (if you have one) and fresh thermal paste is part of regular maintenance (every 3 years in my book).
 
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