Nvida drivers crash mid game and monitor goes to sleep

[ma-san]

Hello, I helped a friend build a new gaming PC about 3 months ago and it's been working fine since then.

Two days ago an issue started happening, during R6 Siege (maybe 45 mins of play) the monitor suddenly went to sleep. My friend could still hear TS and Discord but not the game (steam profile also indicated that they were online). After a restart, everything was normal and they went back into the game. 1 hour later same issue,monitor went to sleep and after a restart everything was normal.

Now I checked the Event logger which stated that "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered"

Ok so I went and got her to use Display Driver Uninstaller. Then got her to download a Nvidia driver that was the one before the latest version. Then ran 3D mark. Twice. There were no problems and everything was good.

Then we started R6 and after a bit, the same ♥♥♥♥ happened. Except this time, the PC shut off mid game. Turning on the power button didn't do anything, bc the system wouldn't turn on.

I got her to take out the card, then the motherboard battery. Plugged in the DVI cable on the motherboard and boom. PC runs fine now. Uninstalled the NVIDIA drivers and turned off the PC again. This time we put the card back in and the system ran. Installed the latest drivers and started playing a different t game.

This time Witcher 3. After maybe 1 hour the same issue happened, the PC turned off and won't start.

The specs are as follows; i7 8700k, Gigabyte gtx 1080 OC, 16Gb ram, MSI MOBO and EVGA supernova g2 650w.

I would really appreciate some helpon this because it's driving me nuts. The other person sadly, this was their first build and one that's been very expressive. So plz halp

[[wan-clan.org] Gordy Freeman]

Which model MSI ?

[ma-san]

MSI Z370 Gaming plus

[[wan-clan.org] Gordy Freeman]

It could be the motherboard or weird BIOS/UEFI defaults but I'd test it with a brand new Seasonic PSU to be certain first.

[ma-san]

You think the PSU might be bad? so try a second PSU? I might be able to use mine but I have the same brand of GPU (not the same model)

[[wan-clan.org] Gordy Freeman]

Gigabyte GTX cards are the most reliable on the market based on return rates. It's highly unlikely to be the GPU.

[ma-san]

Would it be a software issue? something in the OS causing the monitor going to sleep initially then crashing now.

Im just so confused why this problem just started happening now.

[[wan-clan.org] Gordy Freeman]

PSUs fail.
Especially after 4+ months of use.

I suggested Seasonic as they have the lowest failure rate on the market.

[ma-san]

I will try this, thank you.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If the PC is every "forcing a shut-off"
Then your issues are NOT the GPU or Driver; this is clearly a PSU or Motherboard issue.

[ma-san]

Well, the GPU was taken out again. Tested RAM using Memtest and the CPU using Prime95 and there were no issues. Now were replacing the VGA cable and the VGA port on the PSU. Additionally were going to place the 1080 on the second PCIe slot.

hopefully we can narrow this down.

[ma-san]

SO. AFTER ALL OF THIS

we removed the GPU again, ran MemTest, no issues. Ran CPU testes. No issues.

We then replaced the VGA cable, plugged it into another VGA port on the PSU. Moved the GPU to another PCIe slot and installed a new set of drivers for Nvidia. Then we went into MSI after burner and lowered the Core Clock of the GPU by -180.

Then We ran Rainbow six. It lasted for an hour and the same issue occurred. The computer shut down.
Finally, after all of this, we tried another 1080 and a 970, another PSU and a different set of RAM sticks. Each time we did, what ever games would run for a bit but the system would always crash. Monitor would go to sleep and the PC would either shut down or restart.

HELP.

PLEASE