Random one-second black screens

Hi all!

Just assembled the following machine out of brand new components:

Mobo: GA-B250M-DS3H
CPU: G4560
GPU: integrated
PSU: Corsair VS550
RAM: CMK8GX4M2A2400C16
SSD: Kingston SSDnow 300V
Monitor: VGA (the only non-new component)

I have the following trouble -- random one-second black screens, without any error messages left behind. As if the signal was just cut off for a second. It's not the screen saver turning on, as it happens also when the PC is in use, and even when the PC isn't touched, the image comes back on its own.

I thought it was the VGA cable, but the screen works solid on another PC. The issue persists with the generic windows graphics drivers, as well as the latest intel drivers. Another thought was the heat, as I later learned I should have needed to press the diagonals down on the heat sink simultaneously, not one at a time, but the temperatures seem in the norm. Average 46C ... went up to 87C max when doing Heaven benchmark (single pass). Not if that temp is normal for the Heaven.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Does your monitor say "check signal" when it happens?

vram said:

Does your monitor say "check signal" when it happens?

It says "power saving mode".

Would be nice if you could swap monitor to know for sure.

What happens if you set monitor to never sleep?

Those temps seem kinda high. I'd ditch the stock cooler at some point.

Can you boot from a Linux live cd to test? If it's fine there, it's a Windows/software/driver issue. You've got a hardware issue if Linux also glitches.

The screen is already set to never sleep. The issue does not seem to be present under linux after a couple of hours of testing.

Run the Intel processor diagnostics tool.

Download Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool

I didn't know such tool existed. Thanks! The test was a complete pass.

So, the test was a complete pass.

Also, when I reran the benchmark, then the Intel tool showed much better temps than HWinfo64.

The blackout issue still keeps happening.

vram said:

The only thing I could recommend would be to backup/wipe/reload. Don't install anything and monitor. If the issue doesn't appear, reinstall drivers one at a time, conintuing to test. No problems after that, move onto applications.

I should probably have mentioned this, but it started happening immediately after a clean install. Maybe I installed Chrome before I noticed it, but that's it. The only drivers I manually installed were the Intel Graphics ones, and that was in hopes of alleviating the issue.

Hmm... however, I made my Windows 10 USB installer with the Microsoft tool that automagically created the bootable stick without me downloading the ISO first... which I've never done before. Maybe it created a specific installation package, tailored to the PC that I used to create the media?

Now that I think of it, I did have other graphics issues on another rig, where I also used the similarly made USB media (not the exact same stick though), but I attributed the issues to a faulty GTX 560 which in the end completely died. It had worked flawlessly (if a bit hot) for years.