Black screen of death when playing games

Hello guys,

When I play any game (World War Z, Rainbow Six Siege, Wolfenstein Youngblood, and Far Cry 3), I got the black screen of death. I thought it was a cutscene, but my monitor says "NO SIGNAL". After that, I have to restart my computer with the power button. I am so scared that my files may get corrupted. Is there any fix for this?

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But now, I uninstalled Wolfenstein Youngblood and replaced it with Wolfenstein: The New Order.

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Some of my games can run smoothly without that black screen of death.

When did this start? Have you made any changes to your computer recently, hardware, OS, or driver related?

Do you see any errors in the Reliability History: View Reliability History in Windows 10

eddman said:

When did this start? Have you made any changes to your computer recently, hardware, OS, or driver related?

Do you see any errors in the Reliability History: View Reliability History in Windows 10

Last April 2020, when I play World War Z. In the same month, it happened also with Rainbow Six Siege. Around May or June 2020, it also happened when I play Wolfenstein Youngblood. I did not made changes to my PC, but I got that black screen of death.

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eddman said:

When did this start? Have you made any changes to your computer recently, hardware, OS, or driver related?

Do you see any errors in the Reliability History: View Reliability History in Windows 10

As a matter of fact, there is an error in the Reliability History. It is because of an error in my hardware.

eddman said:

Have you ever encountered this black screen issue outside of games?



Open the one that says "Hardware Error". What does it say in there exactly?

It doesn't necessarily mean that your hardware is faulty. It could also be a windows or driver issue. Is your video card driver up-to-date? If not, install the latest one and see if it helps.

You could also run a stress test program. Try this (download the stable version): OCCT : Free, all-in-one stability test & stress test for your PC

Go to the 3D tab and click the play button (A countdown would appear. Let it finish and then click the play button).

Run it for 2-3 minutes. See if it crashes or causes the No Signal problem. Keep a close eye on the GPU temperature and make note of the value you see at the moment of the crash. It's usually advised to stop the test when it reaches 80c, although it's different from card to card. With mine, it reaches 82-83c but is still stable.

If it passes, try the "OCCT" test for a few minutes (first tab from the left). Make note of the "CPU", "CPU die" and "VRM MOS" temperatures. Again, don't let it get too hot.

If that passes too, then you could try the "Power" test. This one combines the previous two tests and stress tests the PSU.

No, when I play games only. It said there that the live kernel event caused the problem. I updated my video card last October 2019. I'm going to try to install the OCCT program and also perform a stress test. I played Far Cry 3 on the time my computer got the KSOD.

Just a note: Radeon cards are notorious for underperforming cooling systems (at least with all of mine). The fan profiles do not scale properly with temperature and basically the GPU gets too hot when playing demanding games, then you get the black screen.

A solution that I found to be reliable is to manually force my GPU fan to run at 60% all of the time (you have to set this in game profiles/performance tab). It makes the PC a little noisier, but I haven't had a black screen in a couple of years since discovering this little trick. I have twin 580s in crossfire and the noise is not unbearable, however my PC sits under my desk.

I have complained to AMD a number of times about this very problem, but they seem more concerned with a "silent PC" (no GPU fan running at all) than preventing the problem it causes.

Gurn Blanston said:

Just a note: Radeon cards are notorious for underperforming cooling systems (at least with all of mine). The fan profiles do not scale properly with temperature and basically the GPU gets too hot when playing demanding games, then you get the black screen.

A solution that I found to be reliable is to manually force my GPU fan to run at 60% all of the time (you have to set this in game profiles/performance tab). It makes the PC a little noisier, but I haven't had a black screen in a couple of years since discovering this little trick. I have twin 580s in crossfire and the noise is not unbearable, however my PC sits under my desk.

I have complained to AMD a number of times about this very problem, but they seem more concerned with a "silent PC" (no GPU fan running at all) than preventing the problem it causes.

As a matter of fact, my GPU is a Radeon RX 580.

Just received it again while playing Dota 2. I am SO ****ING WORRIED ABOUT MY PC. i am nearly winning the game when I noticed 10-30 fps. Later then, I got the KSoD.

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eddman said:

Have you ever encountered this black screen issue outside of games?



Open the one that says "Hardware Error". What does it say in there exactly?

It doesn't necessarily mean that your hardware is faulty. It could also be a windows or driver issue. Is your video card driver up-to-date? If not, install the latest one and see if it helps.

You could also run a stress test program. Try this (download the stable version): OCCT : Free, all-in-one stability test & stress test for your PC

Go to the 3D tab and click the play button (A countdown would appear. Let it finish and then click the play button).

Run it for 2-3 minutes. See if it crashes or causes the No Signal problem. Keep a close eye on the GPU temperature and make note of the value you see at the moment of the crash. It's usually advised to stop the test when it reaches 80c, to prevent any possible damage, although it's different from card to card. With mine, it reaches 82-83c but is still stable.

EDIT: I've also seen 90c advised as the limit. You have to test it for yourself.

If it passes, try the "OCCT" test for a few minutes (first tab from the left). Make note of the "CPU", "CPU die" and "VRM MOS" temperatures. Again, don't let it get too hot.

If that passes too, then you could try the "Power" test. This one combines the previous two tests and stress tests the PSU.

EDIT: It wouldn't hurt to check inside the PC case too, to make sure the coolers are working and not clogged up with dust. Also check if anything is loose, video card, power cable, etc.

Here is the result of the OCCT test.

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My GPU is OK.

You didn't report back at all. Have you tried Gurn Blanston's suggestion?

I'm not sure but I'd say 88c is too high. Has it always been this hot?

Run a temp monitoring software in the background, like GPU-Z, then play a game and see if it reports any thermal throttling.

What exact 580 model do you have? Compare your max in-game temp with reviews for that specific model.

Have you checked if your card is clean, no dust/lint buildup? If it is, then maybe its thermal paste has dried up.