Recurring sudden blackscreens, probably driver-related

Hello.

Basically, every few days, when I'm lucky just every few weeks, my screen will suddenly go black while the PC is running. I can usually get it back by rebooting the PC, but it'll repeat itself a few minutes later. The only solution I have found so far is to uninstall and reinstall my graphics drivers, that staves off the issue for a while, but like I said, it always comes back eventually. On rare occasions, the screen is completely black after the boot menu when starting the PC, but still works fine in Safe Mode, where I can do the driver reinstall to return matters to normal for a while.

I heavily suspect this being a driver issue. The monitor itself works fine on other PCs and vice versa, connecting a new monitor to this one does not fix anything. And if it were the GPU, I don't know why it would work again in Safe Mode. Also, once or twice, I've uninstalled the drivers yet the screen kept its maximum resolution, which as a layman sounds to me like there may be some old driver still somehow active.

Things I've tried:
-Checking if the cables are all properly connected (duh)
-Uninstalling NVIDIA drivers via Apps & Features
-Uninstalling GPU drivers via Device Manager
-Checking the fresh installation box when doing a custom install of the NVIDIA drivers, the drivers having been downloaded from the NVIDIA website
-Letting Windows 10 Auto-Update install the drivers instead of installing them manually


Monitor: Brand is "LG", max resolution is 1680 x 1050 (it's an older model that came with no box or manual and was a gift from my uncle)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
GPU Driver Version: 451.67 (but I've had the issue with several previous versions too)
GeForce Experience: Currently not installed, but I've had it installed once and still got the problem
DirectX-Version: DirectX 12

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 19041) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Windows Version Number: 2004 (Build 19041.388)
Language: German (Regional Setting: German)
System Manufacturer: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Model: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
BIOS: P1.50 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8144MB RAM
Page File: 4207MB used, 4335MB available

I have a similar issue to you... if not the same thing..
my PC the screen will at random though has not locked up in a few days so far...
the screen will go blank and lock up the system mostly.. I have to reboot at this point.. boots just fine and doesn't happen again for a while or days... I get the following in the app event logs..

Fault bucket LKD_0x141_Tdr:6_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys_Pascal, type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent

so it seems like it is a driver issue.. but as I did report it on the Nvidia Forums... I have so far only gotten a run around...
saying it could br a defective CPU or something else hardware related... but my system runs fine most of the time...

so yeah I wanted to share my similar experience with you Martin92

I am currently running NVIDIA driver v442.74

Make sure that your GPU fan is running fast enough. I occasionally get a black screen caused by the overheating of my GPU.

Gurn Blanston said:

Make sure that your GPU fan is running fast enough. I occasionally get a black screen caused by the overheating of my GPU.

as far as my PC goes... (not sure who u were talking to)
I manually have to set the speed of my fan because my EVGA GTX 1070 Ti 8GB gfx card fan will not startup till the GPU reaches a temperature of 60°Celsius so I manually set it to 70% fan speed via the EVGA overclocking tool (and no I do not over clock anything in my system, lol)
my GPU temperature is 87.8°F idle and 105°F while gaming...

Melchior said:

I have a similar issue to you... if not the same thing..
my PC the screen will at random though has not locked up in a few days so far...
the screen will go blank and lock up the system mostly.. I have to reboot at this point.. boots just fine and doesn't happen again for a while or days... I get the following in the app event logs..


so it seems like it is a driver issue.. but as I did report it on the Nvidia Forums... I have so far only gotten a run around...
saying it could br a defective CPU or something else hardware related... but my system runs fine most of the time...

so yeah I wanted to share my similar experience with you Martin92

I am currently running NVIDIA driver v442.74

That does sound similar. The responses you've received are a bit vague, though. Maybe we can narrow it down more.

Gurn Blanston said:

Make sure that your GPU fan is running fast enough. I occasionally get a black screen caused by the overheating of my GPU.

This suggestion, I do find interesting, since I've noticed my back fan has been getting slower for a while now. Checking in on the GPU fans, one is running fine, the other is doing nothing, but that's probably because, as I hear, the GPU auto-regulates when the second fan is needed. It briefly springs into action when I touch it/manually give it a spin, so it's probably not dead.

That said, such a blackscreen also happened to me yesterday, which wasn't even that hot a day over here, and when I hadn't been doing any gaming or anything taxing of the like, just browsing the web, watching some youtube videos and working with text files.

I'm currently running something of an experiment. I uninstalled all my GPU drivers and prevented windows from automatically installing new ones. This means no gaming of course, but it seems to work for all my other needs. If I am problem-free this way for a long enough time, I imagine this means we can rule out fan problems.

Hello again, everyone. This is an update.

I have successfully spent a week with only basic drivers, force-preventing Windows from reinstalling/rolling back to more advanced drivers. I had no blackscreens during that time, so I find it likely that the drivers are indeed to blame.

Next, I wondered if maybe Windows is also trying to install updates on top of my existing drivers somehow and that's the problem, so I installed the latest NVIDIA driver and then force-blocked the updating again. However, two or three days after, I had another blackscreen, so that's not it.

Also, I have checked GPU heat immediately after the last blackscreen, it wasn't warm at all.

Does anyone else have further ideas with this new information in mind?

There are current issues with Windows 10 2004 and NVIDIA drivers -

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...004#418msgdesc

OldNavyGuy said:

There are current issues with Windows 10 2004 and NVIDIA drivers -

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...004#418msgdesc

Thank you, this does sound very interesting and if that's the root of the issue, would mean it hopefully resolves itself in another two weeks or so.

That said, something is throwing me off. In the link you provided, it says:

"The affected drivers are any version lower than 358.00"

From what I can tell, I was using NVDIA driver 451.67, however, so shouldn't I be exempt from the issue?

You should.

Since you mentioned that things work fine in Safe Mode, I suggest you do a Clean Boot, and follow that troubleshooting process.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...oot-in-windows

I had a pc with a 970 that worked in safe mode and dont worked in normal mode.

1)This is because in safe mode the card used lower resolution so it does not stress the card link enough with the monitor.
The fix was a new quality cable from my gpu card to monitor.

2) Also i had a similar black screen in another pc with a gtx nvidia card and the fix was to clean the pcie and reinsert the gpu.