My PC is a little over a year old and had occasional game crashes before this happened. While I was playing a game, both monitors suddenly went black as if the computer had lost power. The PC still turns on, and I can hear Windows booting through my earphones, but every display connected through DisplayPort reports no signal. I tried different ports, monitors, outlets, power cables, reseating the GPU, and checking the PCIe power connection, but nothing changed. Afterward, my surge protector made a high-pitched ringing sound until I unplugged everything. The system has an Intel i7-14700F, ASRock B760M-CX motherboard, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, 650W ASRock Challenger Gold PSU, 1TB NVMe SSD, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory. What could have caused this, and how can I determine whether the GPU or power supply failed?
2 Answers
That high-pitched noise from the surge protector is a major warning sign, especially since it stopped when everything was disconnected. Don’t ignore it—stop using that protector and replace the power supply with a reputable, higher-quality model with enough headroom for the system. The current PSU may have experienced a fault or voltage event that damaged the GPU. Since the graphics card is still under warranty, use that warranty, but make sure the PSU is replaced before connecting the new card.
The symptoms point toward a GPU failure, but the power supply or surge protector could have caused it. Since the computer still boots and you tested multiple monitors and ports, the graphics card’s display outputs may have been damaged. I’d warranty-test or replace the GPU, but I would also replace the PSU before installing the replacement so the same problem doesn’t happen again.
What kind of power supply would you recommend? Someone else built this system for me.
I’m going to replace the GPU under warranty and get a new power supply before using it. I definitely don’t want to risk damaging the replacement.