Monitor going black while playing games

After about 20 seconds or so while playing a game the Monitor screen will go black. I guess it has something to do with the 3D card but after opening the case.. cleaning out any dust… and checking if the fan on the card spins while it's running (which it does) and rolling back drivers to older versions … it's still doing it. It seems to run fine when it doesn't need to power a game. Just surfing the web etc.. but a little while into a game it will shut off the monitor screen. Just started happening yesterday and today. It's a Radeon 2900 Pro.. Kind of older card I guess now. Had for a few years. So is it just that the card is dead for rendering anything tough now? or could it be something else?

The only 2 things that comes to my mind is this.

1. Test another montior if you can just to be sure it not the video card.
2. You may have hit the nail on the head during 2d video the card may be doing ok and during game play when the graphic's starts to use 3d chipset could be failing or the drivers may not be able to do what is needed.

Words of warning here before proceeding with this part: Be sure to back up all important data in case of failure and make sure you have a current restore point to revert back to.

Here's how to create restore points:

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/createrpv.html

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis…system-restore/


So another test if the montior checks ok, would be and I know that be hard if you knew someone who had a more updated video card to try, this will be a pain yes because of installing the drivers and what not. before going out and buying a newer updated card.

You can try that and see or wait and see what other techs may have to offer.

Jimbo

try what?

Hey JenJen,

It sounds to me like an overheating problem

I would recommend that you give your laptop a clean-out by blowing it with a compress air canister, and if you feel you are experienced enough, opening it up and cleaning the fans.

The reason being is that the game is putting extra stress on your PC components which will make them run hotter and the heat is either damaging the Components or there is some auto shut-down if the temps of your PC get to hot.

An idea would be to download PC Wizard 2010 ( http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/pc-wizard.html ) and alt-tabbing out of game, and keeping an eye on your temps using PC Wizard whilst the game is running (note them down and post them here if possible). I would recommend you get a normal temps reading (i.e. you note the temps before you start the game) and then it under high-stress (i.e. you note them after the game has started).

Cheers,
Redeye

try what?

Redeye has hit on another possibility best to try his suggestion first, because that would be the easy way of going first. I never used the program he is suggesting, but with that use this one also when getting info needed to troubleshoot your system.

Fan Speed

http://www.brothersoft.com/speedfan-download-61805.html

This will allow you to see the temps of the cpu while running the games. If its not a heating problem, then try what I suggested in my first post.

Jimbo1

I already cleaned out the Video Card fan and any other dust i could see… I took it out and put back in.. I didnt really see much dust in the fan… it looks like a more sealed up fan. here are the current temperatures of the Video card with nothing running except the browser… Video card: Temperature: 57 C Fan: 31.0% Processor: Core1: 38 C Core 2: 38 C And with a game on the video card: It jumps to 75 C fan: 38% so far the monitor is still on 76C now back down to 75 C 77C now back down to 76 78C down to 76C .. monitor is still on 80 C is the highest recorded.. I am still playing the game. For some reason it didnt do it this time. I'll try a diff game now.

As you said that card looks like their is a fan, (Warning High compressed air of high pressure such as a air compressor could cause damage) and if you blew air to clean and please and make sure a can of air is one that you buy from a computer store into the intake of the fan of the video card, it may had dust build up in it, run the other test but try cleaning it more and run some more test.

Here is a test link of that card of your and some info you may find worth reading.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-29…mb-review-his/4

From what I see in this test 70 was peaking on that card so from what you post you are close to it, read up and try blowing it out more and try again.

Ok so here is what happened. I am played one game for about 45 minutes and it did not shut down the card or monitor. Then after I loaded up another game and played for a while and still went ok. Then I stopped for about an hour and loaded up the same game I orginally played for 45 minutes before and about 5 minutes in it shut off the monitor again. I'll try and look at the video card fan again more closely and see if it can be removed and then cleaned.

O so I took some tweezers and dug out any dust i could from between the fan blades.. then blew it out.. it's now running at 72 C during games which is alot coolor than before.. so far it's not shutting anything down.

O so I took some tweezers and dug out any dust i could from between the fan blades.. then blew it out..

it's now running at 72 C during games which is alot coolor than before..

so far it's not shutting anything down.

Cool, keep us posted if everything still doing ok to see if this was the problem.

Jimbo1