Black Screen

[gecko]

I've been having an issue where after playing CFS3 for 5-10 minutes, the screen goes black, the keys don't work, and the sound loops. The only way out is a hard shutdown. It began happening after installing the game War Thunder and initially only affected that game, but now it does the same in CFS3. I've since uninstalled War Thunder and done a clean install of my graphics card drivers but am still getting the problem. Any help is much appreciated!

My system:

Dell Studio XPS 8100
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 64bit
Intel Core i7 CPU 2.93ghz
8gb RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 240 driver 311.06

[MajorMagee]

Perhaps you should try the 314.22 drivers.

[gecko]

Tried that, no go. I have an alternate theory now: I have a lot of usb devices plugged into my machine, and had just added another (wireless adapter) around that same time, could be that my power supply is overloaded. So I scaled some things back/unplugged to see if it will fix it, or am I totally off base with this?

[MajorMagee]

A new power supply was the solution to the last big problem I had with things not working correctly.

[OldCrow]

Tried that, no go. I have an alternate theory now: I have a lot of usb devices plugged into my machine, and had just added another (wireless adapter) around that same time, could be that my power supply is overloaded. So I scaled some things back/unplugged to see if it will fix it, or am I totally off base with this?

Well? Did that fix it?

[gecko]

So far so good, but I've not yet been able to try it with the game running for a long time. We'll see...:wiggle:

[gecko]

Nope, bad as ever.

[gecko]

After some research it's looking more and more like a power supply issue. The amount of time CFS3 will run before the BSOD is getting shorter and shorter, I'm down to a couple minutes now. I think I'll be essentially out of action till I can scrounge the cash to get a new one.:angryfir: I would welcome any alternate theories.

[OldCrow]

After some research it's looking more and more like a power supply issue. The amount of time CFS3 will run before the BSOD is getting shorter and shorter, I'm down to a couple minutes now. I think I'll be essentially out of action till I can scrounge the cash to get a new one.:angryfir: I would welcome any alternate theories.Well you might want to monitor your heat levels on the video card. Maybe the Video crad fan isn't working?
Maybe open your case and really blow the dust and dirt out if you haven't yet. I had a problem with another game along time ago and my case was really full of dust and it fixed it.

[MajorMagee]

This is the one I bought to solve my problems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139047&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Power+Supplies-_-N82E16817139047&gclid=CM_Fk_6E17cCFY-e4AodNiEA1g (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139047&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Power+Supplies-_-N82E16817139047&gclid=CM_Fk_6E17cCFY-e4AodNiEA1g)

[Daiwilletti]

After some research it's looking more and more like a power supply issue. The amount of time CFS3 will run before the BSOD is getting shorter and shorter, I'm down to a couple minutes now. I think I'll be essentially out of action till I can scrounge the cash to get a new one.:angryfir: I would welcome any alternate theories.
Hi Gecko,

I've had similar issues recently.
- the main problem came down to not having the CPU well seated with gunk. This made the CPU overheat. At first I could play for 10 minutes but the time got shorter and shorter.
- Another thing I've done is quite simple. I had an enormous number of things running from the one multi-board from one power socket (computer power, monitor power, external HD power, scanner power, etc). I ran an extension lead from a nearby power socket and ran ONLY the PSU from it - this even made a difference to the quality of the video output!

HTH

[gecko]

I'll give it a try, I was in there not too long ago and tried to clean stuff, but maybe I just knocked a dust bunny into the wrong spot. Thanks.

[gecko]

No luck yet, gave it a thorough dusting, plugged the psu into its own surge protector and outlet, even set up a small household fan directly in front of the vent with a freezer ice pack on it and no change.

[Daiwilletti]

Actually re-reading your first symptoms, my guess would be its a CPU issue not video card. Things like sound looping would not be affected by a dodgy video card or drivers. Hence one thing to look at is re-seating the CPU using the proprietary gunk.

IIRC, one of my Nvidia tools allows monitoring of CPU temp as well as Various video card temps and fan speeds. Do you have something that tells you your CPU temperature? If its anything like my comp, you will have less and less time to test each time you start up.

HTH,

[gecko]

Uhg, sounds expensive. I'm not sure what you mean here:
Hence one thing to look at is re-seating the CPU using the proprietary gunk.

Fortunately, only CFS3 is affected at this point. Also toying with the idea of doing a clean install of windows on the chance that something got messed up when I installed War Thunder.

[Daiwilletti]

Uhg, sounds expensive. I'm not sure what you mean here:

Fortunately, only CFS3 is affected at this point. Also toying with the idea of doing a clean install of windows on the chance that something got messed up when I installed War Thunder.

Oh, that changes things. If its only CFS3 and not a general crash whatever you are working on, then its not so likely to be the CPU overheating.

I've had problems with CFS3 freezing and sound looping, but its usually because of a glitch in the install of an aircraft, which becomes a problem when the game tries to spawn. But no black screen! That suggests hardware, CFS3 is graphics intensive so we're heading back towards looking at the vid card/drivers!

Just a left field thought - what about backing off sound acceleration to medium under DXdiag?

[gecko]

Yes, just CFS3 and War Thunder (now uninstalled). The problem started with the very first time I ran War Thunder and I did not encounter any problems with CFS3 for a couple weeks afterwards, then they started and gradually became worse. I keep very tight control of my install and know for 99.99% certain that it isn't a problem with something I've done to the game.

Graphics drivers have been rolled back to pre-War Thunder state and then the lastest drivers given a clean install.

I've looked for the sound acceleration settings before for a different purpose and couldn't find them. Where are they in windows 7?

Thanks

Daniel

[Daiwilletti]

Hi in Win 7 go to C:\Windows\System32\dxdiag.exe. I always set this up as a shortcut on my desktop because it has useful stuff in it.

When you run this you will find a tab under which you can adjust sound acceleration. Slide back to medium rather than full acceleration. Just a left field option to reduce demand on the system.

[gecko]

Mine has no sliders, or anything to adjust.

[Daiwilletti]

Mine has no sliders, or anything to adjust.

True :isadizzy:! My Win XP version has the option; but I see my Win 7 computer doesn't! Another classic example of "progress" as far as Microsnot propeller-heads are concerned: presumably we are too stupid to adjust our own computers? What a pain.

[gecko]

Oh don't get me started on what M$ has decided we're too stupid to do! My wife has windows 8, just wait till you try that mess. Not only can you not adjust anything on your own computer but they can keep track of everything you ever use it for if they so desire.:toilet:

On a brighter note, I'm still holding my breath but I think I've fixed my problem! I went and downloaded the oldest driver I could find for my graphics card and did a clean install of it. I've not yet touched the settings on the card to put them back where I had them before but I've been able to fly several quick combat missions in a row and no problems. Fingers crossed and knocking on every wooden object in the house. Thanks for all your tips!

[Daiwilletti]

Not at all, that is what the SOH community is so good at :icon29:

[gecko]

Spoke too soon.:banghead: The driver change did significantly improve things, but I still encounter the problem most recently after about 5min, whereas immediately following the old driver install I had no trouble for 15min runs (all I had time to do at the time).

[MajorMagee]

A new power supply was the solution to the last big problem I had with things not working correctly.

I spent a lot of time trying other things first because I was convinced it couldn't be my power supply... :redf:

[gecko]

Yes, probably denial on my part. I want to exhaust all the options that don't cost money before I sink any cash into it. Not easy stuff to come by, that money stuff!:icon_lol:

[gecko]

So the final answer to the problem ended up being a dust issue. Even though I had given everything a pretty thorough cleaning with compressed air I neglected to clean out the vents on the graphics card. This was mainly because it was fairly inaccessible and it didn't look too bad. However I began to notice my black screen came just as my GPU temp reached a certain level. So I opened everything up again and actually removed the card completely and found the fan exhaust vents to be completely chocked out. $10 for another can of air and all is well. Much better than the $80 I was afraid I would have to cough up for a new card! Incidentally the GPU fan is hardly ever on anymore whereas before it ran full bore all the time. If I start to hear it again I'll know where to look.

Hopefully this will help anyone who gets into a similar situation, before you replace anything make absolutely certain the individual parts are dust free as well as a general cleaning.

[Daiwilletti]

thats good news :applause:

thanks for the update, its really useful to have details about how things get resolved :salute:

[dmaloof]

did you add files like planes to cfs 3? you have to chg usiel file

[gecko]

It was an overheating issue (now resolved) rather than a software issue. CFS3 is running happy and bug free.