Monitor goes in standby playing games but computer stays on

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Xilvador, Sep 5, 2012.

  1. Xilvador

    Xilvador Private E-2

    Hello folks. This is my first post so greetings to everyone! :)

    I have read multiple posts on the forum regarding the issue, and followed every possible solutions i could find but am still unable to solve the problem, even though some people are having the exact same problem with even the exact same graphics card. I am getting desperate to find a solution, and I therefore hope some of you guys out there have had a similar problem or know what could be wrong.

    The problem started after playing Diablo 3 for some time, my monitor suddenly turned off, however the computer stayed on. The sound scratters for a second and then goes off, and I am unable to use the keyboard (Numlock/Capslock does not work). However, i recently discovered that I am unable to see my computer on my network through my laptop, and even copy files from it. To start with the crashes only occured rarely and after playing for hours, however the crashes now occured 10 minutes after start and they even started occuring playing other games like WoW and The Sims 3. My first thought was overheat, as CPU was getting temperatures above 80 degrees when playing. I opened the case and saw that the CPU-cooler stopped and started spinnning again every 3-seconds or so, so I bought a new CPU-cooler, and it does spin correct now. However, the crashes still occured, even though my CPU temperature was now at 50 degrees when idle.

    My second thought was then the GPU, as it was also getting semi-high temperatures at 80+ degrees when playing games, so I cleared it for dust and reapplied thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5) on my GPU and saw that the temperatures was lowered to 75 degrees when playing on max settings, however the problem persisted still persisted.

    The problem was now getting so bad, that it even occured when butning a DVD or just downloading files or even when the computer was idle. A second thing I noticed was that my mouse got disconnected for a few seconds and then returned. Also, when burning DVD's my burner often was spinning for minutes unable to read/write. This gave me the idea, that my PSU was defect, so I bought a new PSU. Even though the burning / mouse problem was solved, the problem with my monitor still occured, and even more often than before.

    This gave me no other choice - I had to format my hard drive and reinstall Windows. Everything seemed fine for a moment. I was able to play for a hour or so - then the same thing happened... A thing I have noticed is that after the crash has occured, the crash is likely to happen again shortly after restart, and sometimes even when not playing. It is like something happens on some of my hardware when the crash occurs, that makes it unstable and more likely to crash.

    Here is a list of things I have done so far in order to find a solution:

    - Updated videocard/sound drivers/network/motherboard drivers to the latest.
    - Run games as administrator and in compatibility with Windows XP.
    - Disabled all background processes.
    - Set fps limit to 60 and lowered all video settings in Diablo 3 (the game that started all this. Many others with the same graphics card have had the same issues with Diablo 3, but my problem have sort of spread to the whole computer.
    - Run games in fullscreen as well as windowed.
    - Disabled Multi GPU (set to only use 1 GPU).
    - Checked temperatures using CoreTemp / SpeedFan / RealTemp. The CPU is at ~70 degrees when playing on max settings, and the GPU is at 75-80 degrees. This should not be the cause of overheat.
    - Used RivaTuner / MSI Afterburner to force GPU speed to 100%.
    - Cleared for dust and reapplied thermal paste on GPU and CPU.
    - Reset the CMOS
    - Bought new PSU (850W instead of 750W)
    - Formated hard drive and reinstalled Windows 7.
    tested and CPU and GPU using Prime95 and FurMark

    My hardware specs are as follow:

    CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-975 Processor Extreme Edition (8M Cache, 3.33 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI)
    Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster P2250(G)
    Graphic Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 295 (just one)
    Motherboard: Gigabyte Technologu Co., Ltd. EX58-UD5
    RAM: 6 x 2GB Kingston PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
    CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 412S4
    Network Card: Realtek RTL8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)
    Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro
    DVD/Bluray Drives: ATAPI IHBS112 2 ATA Device, ATAPI iHOS104 ATA Device, PIONEER DVD-RW DVDR-112D ATA Device
    BIOS: BIOS Award Software International, INc. Version F13

    The only thing I have in mind now is the MoBo, the GPU or the RAM that is defect, however I would hate to buy a new GPU just to see that it is not the cause either.

    I really hope you guys can give me some help on what the cause can be, as I am really starting to run out of ideas... :-\
     

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