Unknown Black SOD HL while Gaming

Hi guys, brand new here. Got a problem for you, wizards.

Any game I play, after an indeterminate set of time, will suddenly Black Screen Of Death. The monitor races to a sleep state - no mouse or keyboard input can wake it, restarting the monitor does not fix it, EVGA or HDMI makes no difference, and I cannot alt+tab, or Ctrl+Alt+Del. The sound, however, keeps playing in the background and it doesn't loop. Like I'm still online and connected, but the computer has left the building. Moreover, pressing the power button does not initiate a shut down. My only resort is to hard shut down and restart. I have no issues on restarting, nor running with the normal startup programs - it's just fine. I wiped the hard drives to install Windows 10, so only bare essentials are installed - Adobe stuff, Java, Norton, MBAM, and of course, Dota 2 and Metal Gear Solid V.

No issues in Windows 7 premium, or 8.1 equivalents

My kit:

Windows 10 Pro
CPU: Intel Core2 Quad Core, 2.33GHz x4
HD: Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives, 500GBx2 in SATA Raid 0
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti - Driver Updated Dec 1st, 2015 (and yes, I've clean installed)
RAM: Corsair RAM 8 GB (added 4 after moving to x64 bit)
Power: Thermocool 800V Power supply
Sound: Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme

New fans as of last year, I'm pretty meticulous at taking the dust out w/o frying components. Was a pretty sweet rig 7 years ago

I must say that there seems to be no issues typing this to you, browsing the net, YouTube, or anything simplistic. So, you gotta leak an awful lot of memory to sink this boat, but what's odd is the duration between freezes is pretty random. Could be hours. Could be a moment after I leave the Start menu.

Where is the hole? How do I plug it? Or, is the boat sinking because of something else entirely? Anyone else experienced something similar and solved it? Is Google really the Second Coming because it knows and watches everything you do, all the time? These critical questions need answers - Please help!

Check system temps. Sounds like it could be the GPU overheating.

SylenThunder said:

Check system temps. Sounds like it could be the GPU overheating.

What, on the new OS? I mean, maybe Windows 10 is really taxing, but that much more than 7 or 8? I know there's a case to be made that the GPU has been in use for a while, but I've never seen fail like this yet. What's a reasonable temp for a card of that age? Also, do you know of a good program that can display real-time facts on the CPU/GPU like that? It might shine some light on what's going on.

Of my GPU:
Has been running for 7 years.
Never overclocked.
Lost the bar-graph program that came with it during wipe to Windows 10. (Forgot what it was)
New HP 22cw IPS backlit screen as of month-and-a-half ago, no problems prior to switch to Windows 10. (Larger, crisper pixels)
NVIDIA control panel allows hard settings for the card (I could switch power setting from "Adaptive" to "Prefer Max Output", for example).

Dust buildup in the fan or heatsink is a pretty common cause for it overheating. I typically use the MSI or EVGA software for monitoring my GPU (depending on which PC I am on). Your card likely came with software for this, and possibly OCing it as well. The same programs will also allow you much more control over the fan on the GPU. I'd consider anything under 60C to be reasonable under heavy load, but closer to 42-45C is preferred. That card can go up to 70C and I think the critical level would be about 90C off the top of my head, but it's after 3am and it's been a really long night at work so I might be off there a tad.

When you're just tooling around, it's not really using the GPU much, so it doesn't get that hot. However, when you start gaming, it can really ramp it up. If the cooling system is compromised, the card can heat up really fast, and that will lead to effects just like what you're describing. Also, depending on who made it, the GPU cooler could be really prone to collecting dust. I personally prefer MSI's coolers, but my current EVGA isn't so bad. I've seen some that I just don't understand how they work effectively for longer than a year without constant maintenance.

(I have that exact same card BTW, mine is OC'ed though. Your PC setup is almost exactly the same as mine before I upgraded to an i7.)

Sorry for the delay, I finally got the time to dust the GTX. It never had much to start with, now it's clean as crystal.

It did not solve these snap-black screen moments - I just found out they can happen when not playing games after booting up the computer just to post this. I am still getting these crash/freezes where the screen/keyboard/mouse act as if they're asleep and the computer disagrees. I still don't know what's going on in the background, as my display has gone to sleep. Is there another bottleneck on this? A way to generate an error report after restarting?

OK, time to check the integrity of your OS.

Run the following commands from an elevated command prompt.


Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
sfc /scannow

If those complete without error, also download and re-install your video card driver. Choose "Advanced Install" and choose the option for "Perform a clean install". (It is also a good time to remove unused settings/drivers like the "3D Vision Driver" or "HD Audio" if you aren't using glasses or audio over HDMI.

Sorry, Sylen - it yielded nothing. Really starting to feel like reversion to Windows 8.1 is the answer for now