Strange crashing in Games/problem with monitoring software too!

[SinisterDev85]

Ive been experiencing this strange crash recently. Trying to track down the culprit. I havent been playing many games, but thus far Ive experienced the same type of crash while playing Diablo 3 and Fallout 4. Suddenly my screen will go blank, followed by loss of signal. The only way to get it working again is to unplug my HDMI from the video card and plug it back in. Then the signal gets restored. If its Diablo, I get a problem with"D3D" error and it asks me to retry. Sometimes I can get the game working again after that.
With Fallout 4, the game simply crashes to desktop. That's where the next problem comes in. After this type of crash , I cannot open Nvidia Control panel, and any monitoring software I was using at the time, say MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision tool all show Temp.,Gpu and Cpu at 0. Seems to happen in any monitoring software that was running before the crash. Only resetting the PC seems to resolve that issue.

Any ideas? I really hope this isnt a problem with my video card. Its fairly new ...

[MeanMachine]

Hi SinisterDev85 😄

Well you know, even brand new hardware can fail, but fear not, EVGA are very good with Warranty.

Signal loss over HDMI can be due to the connection terminals themselves or the distance your cables run. Inspect the terminal connections and try another cable of good quality.
Do a DirectX diagnosis and update the DX files.
Which Nvidia driver version are you running? Try an update to latest driver for your card.
Ensure all critical updates and the .NET framework is installed.

If it works after a reboot as you describe, then I would say it is a software problem. Maybe corrupted files within Windows, so do an "SFC /scannow" without the quotation marks, to eliminate that problem.

Please report back.

[MajorMajor]

Sounds like it could be hardware or drivers/software. I'd start with reinstalling all your drivers and software first, then if it doesn't work try to get a replacement if the GPU is under warranty.

[Nate152]

Hi SinisterDev85

The issue you describe could also be due to an unstable overclock, you could try resetting everything to defaults and see if your games still crash.

[SinisterDev85]

Thanks guys! I'll look into it later tonight when I get a chance and see what happens.
I did recently get new HDMI cables. Nothing special, just Amazon basics high speed hdmi. I only had a very mild overclock going on the 970, but I'll try running at default.
My drivers are the most recent, and Windows is up to date. I'll do the DX and SFC scans and see what turns up!

Evga has been great to me over the years with warranties and such!

[TheAmazingDave]

Sounds like what happens when I push my 970 too hard. Same symptoms with monitoring tools, too.

[SinisterDev85]

Ok, DirectX diagnostics showed no issues. SFC ran and gave me a msg saying that Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and made repairs, but was unable to fix some. I checked out the log file. Lots of information to look over. At the very end of the file it said "All files and registry keys listed in this transaction have been successfully repaired". So Im not sure whats up exactly. Want me to share the log file?

[SinisterDev85]

My drivers are up to date. I use the Nvidia Geforce experience and usually just update it when a new driver comes out. I guess Ill play some games for a few days and see if things are better after the file repairing and lowering the OC settings!

Thanks again guys!

[SinisterDev85]

That's so odd. I was working on a nice overclock for a while , increasing the ram and gpu in small increments. I had the ram oc'd 215mhz and the Gpu oc'd 100mhz for a few weeks and had no graphics card related issues. I just noticed that while these crashes were happening recently the settings were actually dialed back to another profile I had saved where the Gpu was oc 95mhz and the Ram 100mhz. From what I had read online many people were successful in achieving stable overclocks significantly higher than I dared to go! I also make it a habit to always have the display overlay up on the screen . This 970 FTW hasn't even come close to running hot either! It handles diablo 3@ 4k resolution easily and temps stay in the 50's. However I usually play it at 1440p anyway.
Fallout doesnt make it run hot either. Temps never have gone over 60c. I guess I'll try setting the card to default and seeing what happens.

[MeanMachine]

OK keep the log files for now. Although the system has repaired your registry, you may still need to have the log file analyzed if issue persists. Best place to do this is Windows 7 forum.
Have you upgraded your Graphics driver yet? results.
Sometimes you need to uninstall applications and reinstall if your registry has been corrupted. Including Nvidia Control software.