P650SG acting weird lately...

Hello everyone,

For the past few weeks or so, my laptop's acting pretty weird. When I try to play games, it would always go on black screen. I believe the games are still running, but it's just a black screen. The only exceptions are CS:GO and a few other games, those games run perfectly with no problems.

I tried updating to the latest graphics drivers, that doesn't seem to work. I also tried going back to earlier drivers, that doesn't seem to work either. Tried reinstalling the games too, nope, still doesn't work.

I am not sure what's causing it to behave like this... should I reinstall Windows 10 and see what happens?

My laptop's specs are in my signature, if you guys need more details, please ask. Thanks.

 

Do you do Windows update regularly. Sometimes I have those weired problems when I don't do the updates.

 

What makes you believe that the game is still running once the panel goes black - for example does the audio continue and/or do the fans keep spinning as if the system is under load?

Might be worth doing a system restore through Windows first before reinstalling. Also don't be afraid to reach out to your reseller/SI, we're all here to help!

 

Maybe I didn't state my problem properly... I mean, the games sometimes goes on black screen on windows mode and full screen mode also.

I don't have a restore point that's over weeks ago... so I think I will have to do a Windows reinstall.

EDIT: added edtails

Sent from my potato running on Android 5.1.1

 

What he is saying is that are you sure the games are playing properly in the background when the screen goes black? Does the background audio just play or can you hear you character move when you press the keyboard? How can you tell the game is not actually frozen?

 

Yes, I can hear the audio in the background. Sorry about the confusion.

Sent from my potato running on Android 5.1.1

 

Have you tried to see if games might show up on an external monitor or TV at all? Or have you tried re-installing those games and seeing if that helps? Have you tried uninstalling and re-installing the Intel HD drivers as well as the Nvidia drivers as well?

I'd agree, it might be worth doing a clean install to see if it helps with the problem, but just wasn't sure if maybe you had ruled out those by chance.

 

I did the 2nd and the 3rd part, but not the first. I don't have access to an external display right now, I doubt it will make a difference anyway.

I will probably do a windows re-installation and see what happens. Hopefully I don't have to RMA a laptop that's just 5 months old...

 

There is a slim chance the heat of the game is causing a loose display connector to expand slightly and stop making contact and that connecting an external monitor (no TV or anything you can borrow?) Would totally rule that in or out.

 

I don't think so. Some of the games I opened goes to Windows mode instead of Fullscreen, only the game application goes black screen, not the entire display.

Something like this: http://imgur.com/MYXR85d

But thanks though.

 

Ok that has cleared it up, so it has to be nvidia gpu related and not the igp or display. Have you tried underclocking your card 100MHz on the core?

 

Um, I haven't tried that yet. Is there a reason why I should do this? Just wondering.

 

Either you GPU needs more voltage to hold the stock clocks or its dying.. My bet is its the latter.. Might have to RMA..

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

 

I am not sure if it needs more voltage to hold stock speeds, but so far, my core clocks during games only goes up to 540MHz now... Sometimes it will max speeds, but 540MHz most of the time.

 

This doesn't seem like hardware/electrical malfunction.

You said you tried different drivers; does that go for both the Intel HD graphics and the NVidia graphics? Did you try going back to the stock driver on each and testing those? And did you notice/monitor what clock speeds you were running at when playing one of the games you mentioned working fine (like CS:GO)?

 

I tried on three different games (CS:GO, Insurgency, and Payday 2), they all seem to run at 540MHz according to MSI Afterburner.

I will probably try installing drivers that Eurocom provided and see if it fixes the problem.

 

Nope, seems that going back to stock drivers doesn't seem to help either (Nvidia 353.30 drivers and some old Intel HD drivers provided by Eurocom).

Anything I should try to do before reinstalling Windows? Thanks.

EDIT: Looks like core clocks are returning back to normal now, but the games that went black screen remained the same.

 

Kind of weird...

I suppose a Windows reinstall will confirm one way or the other whether it's hardware malfunction or not. The black screens in select games doesn't sound like hardware failure, but strange things happen.

 

Alright, time to backup my files. :/ Hopefully everything will be okay.

I will give you guys an update if anything happens.

 

Can you post up the graphs from MSI afterburner and run something like XTU to also graph CPU behavior?

 

Looks like everything is working now... I can finally play all the games that went blackscreen, along with benchmarks as well. Tried CS:GO, Insurgency, Crysis 2, Dying Light for games, Unigine Heaven and 3DMark for Benchmark. They all seem to run normally...

I still have no idea on why this is happening...

 

Did you do anything at all like a re-install?

Maybe now is a good time to take an image of the system in case it comes back up again.

 

Yes, I re-installed Windows 10. It took me hours to re-install all my games and programs back.

Yeah, good idea. I will probably create a system restore point as well.

 

I'm glad it's sorted for you, hopefully it does stay that way

 

Yes! Good plan. Also glad to hear it's working now (despite the hassle).

 

I recently found out why the black screens on games happen. I thought I would make a new thread about it, but uh, I am just goona post it here.

I recently started to use softwares such as Duet Display and Splashtop xWire Display HD to use my iPad as a second monitor. As soon as I uninstall those softwares, the games would work again. But I just don't understand why does it happen...

 

It may be down to those programs using drivers that mess with the screen focus and it's interfering with the GPU when you try and go full screen or windowed mode.

 

My....had also an issue related to Duet display !
It happened on my dell xps 13 (specs in signature).

My problems were stuttering in netflix, Spotify cannot access Hardware acceleration etc. Some driver crashes.

 

With the new standard driver model with DX12 this sort of thing may become easier to manage.