My PC repeatedly loses video output while playing certain games. Valorant runs, but its frame rate has recently fallen from around 200 FPS to 90 FPS. When I launch games such as CS2, the screen goes completely black as soon as GPU usage reaches 100%. The computer itself stays powered on, but the GPU stops displaying an image and its fans shut off. I've reseated the graphics card, tried different memory, updated the motherboard BIOS, changed graphics settings, and attempted various other fixes without success. The GPU reportedly reaches only about 75°C. My system has a Ryzen 5 1600, an RTX 3060 Ti, 24GB of RAM, and a Corsair RM850x 850W power supply. The RAM consists of two matched 8GB sticks plus one additional 8GB stick, and my storage drives have plenty of free space. What could be causing these black screens?
3 Answers
Check whether the display driver is recovering or crashing when the screen goes black. Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer may show a driver timeout, WHEA hardware error, or a Kernel-Power event. If the system recovers after restarting the graphics driver, try disabling overlays, hardware acceleration, and any GPU overclock or undervolt. If the GPU fans actually stop and the machine needs a hard reset, that points more toward a GPU, power connection, or motherboard PCIe problem than a normal game setting.
The temperature doesn’t sound high enough to immediately blame overheating, but the card or its power delivery could still be failing under load. Try another known-good GPU if possible, or test this card in another system. Also reseat the PCIe power connectors and avoid using a daisy-chained cable if your power supply has separate cables available.
The RM850x has more than enough wattage, so the exact PSU model is less suspicious here. I’d still install the latest AM4 chipset driver, check Windows Reliability Monitor for display-driver or hardware errors, and perform a clean NVIDIA driver installation. The Ryzen 5 1600 and mixed three-stick memory setup are also worth testing: run with only the matched 2x8GB kit and check whether the crashes stop.
The BIOS and chipset drivers are current. The extra 8GB stick is the same make and model, but I can remove it temporarily and test with just the matched pair.
The highest temperature I’ve seen is only about 75°C, so I wasn’t sure overheating could be the cause.