I'm having some issues with my GPU and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar. Here are my specs: Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz RAM (2x8 GB), ASUS TUF GTX 1660 Super GPU (which seems to be the problem), Corsair 550 Watt PSU, and a Samsung NVMe SSD. It all started while I was playing Sonic Adventure on a Dreamcast emulator; my system froze completely, but I could still move the mouse, which was really strange. I thought it was just a fluke.
A few days later, my system wouldn't POST and was stuck on the VGA LED, but a reset got it to boot up. I suspected the GPU, but stress tests didn't show any errors. After moving cross-country and settling in, I got a black screen with the fans running at full speed while the system was idle, which is odd since crashes usually happen under load. My Reliability Monitor flagged some events too.
Yesterday, I adjusted some settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel and everything seemed fine until about 30 minutes ago when I got another black screen and now Windows won't display anything, just the BIOS logo. My system seems to work but there's nothing on screen. Has anyone else had this kind of strange GPU behavior, especially when not heavily loaded? Any troubleshooting tips would be great! Also, RIP to my 1660 Super. I think it might be on its last legs, but it's not completely dead yet.
UPDATE: I found out Fast Startup was causing the black screen. Hitting the reset button got my picture back, but I'm pretty sure the GPU is toast.
1 Answer
You might want to try restarting Windows Explorer through Task Manager, although I get it can be tough if there’s no display. If that doesn’t work, consider using a Windows Recovery USB for Start-Up Repair. Sometimes a black screen is linked to the PSU if it isn't powering the GPU properly. Just a thought!
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll give the recovery method a shot. Unfortunately, I can't access Task Manager if there's no display, so I'll try some safe mode troubleshooting tomorrow.