HELP! Is My Monitor Getting Ready to Die, or is it something else?

[Gmr_Chick]

I'm a bit frantic right now, so apologies in advance. I was playing Battlefront II just now, when my PC up and turned off in the middle of a Co-Op game...I turned it back on and noticed the picture on my monitor was rather blinding. Really bright, damn near made my eyes hurt even. I then tried to check what picture setting I was on (I use the AORUS and Reader presets. I believe it was on AORUS this time) and I couldn't select the picture mode...I then tried a reset of all the settings, whereupon my picture now looks like this:

On my monitor at least, it looks sickly and VERY washed out no matter what aspects I try to change (brightness, contrast, etc.), and trying to type this on the screen is worse. Everything is all dull and dark and I'm seriously worried that my monitor is going to take a shit --- or worse, something else in my PC is going to kick the bucket. Help!

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Brand new Seasonic should be fine, but it is possible to get a bad one.

Thing is, it's not brand new. I've owned it for several years now. 4 or 5 now, I think. I'll admit though, I've never actually cleaned it in the time I've had it, because it's never looked like it needed it, the back vents are clear, the fan looks brand new still (no dust buildup or anything) and all that good stuff. My guess is it's probably still got a few years left on that 10 year warranty, should it be faulty. About the only thing I've done in the years I've owned it is swap out the cables for a PRO series kit from CableMod, making sure my PSU was compatible with them.

@Mussels -- so I downloaded OCCT and ran the Power test for 35 minutes. No crashes. I'm currently running the 32 test with shader complexity at 5, also for 35 minutes, with error detection on. Only has a couple minutes left. Again, no errors or crashes. One thing I found kind of weird while running the power test was voltages, a couple of them seemed crazy high and I remembered the shenanigans board makers do when it comes to voltages. I took some screenshots:

VBAT is damn near pegged and VPPM is pegged. Actually, I'm kinda concerned with most of the voltage numbers. What's considered stock/safe?

In this screen, CPU PPT is also pegged.

CPU temps during the test.

AIO temps during the same test.

 

[Mussels]

oh wait its ryzen?

is this a black screen crash with the hardware still running, or a total power down?

 

[Gmr_Chick]

oh wait its ryzen?

is this a black screen crash with the hardware still running, or a total power down?

Total power down, similar to flipping the PSU switch from On to Off. It shuts down completely without warning (no BSOD or anything) and then I have to turn it on again. Checking in Event Viewer, both times it's done this -- again, while playing only Battlefront II -- both instances have Event ID 41, having to do with Kernel-Power:

BugcheckCode

0

BugcheckParameter1

0x0

BugcheckParameter2

0x0

BugcheckParameter3

0x0

BugcheckParameter4

0x0

SleepInProgress

0

PowerButtonTimestamp

0

BootAppStatus

0

Checkpoint

0

ConnectedStandbyInProgress

false

SystemSleepTransitionsToOn

0

CsEntryScenarioInstanceId

0

BugcheckInfoFromEFI

false

CheckpointStatus

0

CsEntryScenarioInstanceIdV2

0

LongPowerButtonPressDetected

false

 

[Mussels]

event viewer wont help you find hardware faults
battlefront II uses CPU and GPU, as well as RAM

It's just that ryzen is known to have weird black screen crashes when RAM is set up incorrectly, and for me it would only ever show at idle or in games where the load level fluctuated a lot

Are you on latest mobo BIOS? Are you at stock + XMP or tweaked settings?

 

[Gmr_Chick]

event viewer wont help you find hardware faults
battlefront II uses CPU and GPU, as well as RAM

It's just that ryzen is known to have weird black screen crashes when RAM is set up incorrectly, and for me it would only ever show at idle or in games where the load level fluctuated a lot

Are you on latest mobo BIOS? Are you at stock + XMP or tweaked settings?

I'm running BIOS from November of last year (bought the board used so those were obviously the last BIOS updated by the former owner) and never really felt the need to update them because everything was working fine. The problems just started a couple days ago. Guess I HAVE to update the BIOS now.

The CPU is running at stock, memory is set at it's rated speed (3200Mhz) via XMP.

 

[Mussels]

update the BIOS (AMD's BIOS updates are genuinely helpful, and fairly often. a big ones coming out this month) and enable XMP

Then set SoC to 1.1V and DRAM to 1.4V and see if you have any issues

 

[delshay]

Did you pull the panel off to see what the condition is for the backlights?

Not yet. When I go from minimum brightness to absolute max there's very little change.
It would be a first for me to change the LEDS, but I was wondering has anyone done this. ie, desolder & replace every single LED.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Total power down, similar to flipping the PSU switch from On to Off. It shuts down completely without warning (no BSOD or anything) and then I have to turn it on again. Checking in Event Viewer, both times it's done this -- again, while playing only Battlefront II -- both instances have Event ID 41, having to do with Kernel-Power:

BugcheckCode

0

BugcheckParameter1

0x0

BugcheckParameter2

0x0

BugcheckParameter3

0x0

BugcheckParameter4

0x0

SleepInProgress

0

PowerButtonTimestamp

0

BootAppStatus

0

Checkpoint

0

ConnectedStandbyInProgress

false

SystemSleepTransitionsToOn

0

CsEntryScenarioInstanceId

0

BugcheckInfoFromEFI

false

CheckpointStatus

0

CsEntryScenarioInstanceIdV2

0

LongPowerButtonPressDetected

false

Did the temps look high right before that shutdown? Albeit I thought that you would have to unplug the PSU and plug it in again, if you got a "therm-trip" or triggered OCP. (over-current-protection)
Maybe it's a sign of literally a bug or arachnid crawling into the case and causing shorts. I know that the lower floor in my house, regularly has a spider problem.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

OK, so! I updated to the latest BIOS for my board, reverted back to default settings, saved, then restarted and went back into BIOS to set XMP and, thanks to some handy info in another thread, adjusted my PSU Idle Current setting from "Auto" (which it's set to by default) to "Typical Current", then booted into Windows. Fired up HWInfo and BF II to test, and lo and behold, no shut downs during the session!

I made sure to save the HWInfo log, but opening it in wordpad turns it into a big mess, lol. That said, I'm cautiously optimistic.

---

UPDATE: Well, so much for me being cautiously optimistic. It just died again while playing BF II. After rebooting, I went into the BIOS and disabled XMP. Going to re-test right now. If it still crashes, then I'll have to tear down the entire rig and see what the problem is...

 

[Mussels]

you're at the point you gotta test with spare parts... you got another system to swap bits with?

 

[Gmr_Chick]

you're at the point you gotta test with spare parts... you got another system to swap bits with?

I don't have many. I have an air cooler (Cooler Master MA610P that's an absolute bitch to mount), a spare 2 x 8 kit of G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz RAM, a Cougar Panzer MAX case my original Ryzen 5 1600 and that's it. Only other PC in the house is the one family uses. Has some of my older parts in it (PSU, GPU)

 

[rtwjunkie]

I know you said the other PSU is in another PC, but it might be time to swap out just to isolate if it's PSU, before going into any of the other possible parts.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Makes me think to get a multimeter to see if it's a shutdown or a crash. (And measure the +12V rail) (the yellow and black wires, like a bee, LOL) (black is the ground)

If it's a crash with a black screen, then that was what I was dealing with back in early January, because of GPU core tweaking. At first, with GTA V, it seemed like I wasn't going to get a video crash, but then I suddenly got multiple video crashes in a row with GTA V, makes me wonder if it was heat build-up.

 

[Mussels]

I don't have many. I have an air cooler (Cooler Master MA610P that's an absolute bitch to mount), a spare 2 x 8 kit of G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz RAM, a Cougar Panzer MAX case my original Ryzen 5 1600 and that's it. Only other PC in the house is the one family uses. Has some of my older parts in it (PSU, GPU)

try swapping the RAM first, as its the easiest to do

then GPU, then PSU (order of ease, basically)

 

[Deleted member 202104]

*puts tech support hat on*

Any new updates, drivers, or software you've installed recently before this started happening?

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Typing this on my laptop. Started tearing down the rig and decided to have a look inside the PSU (to see if there were any critters/big dust bunnies in it) and...it looked weird inside. When I say "Weird" I mean it looks like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had a sneezing fit (or puke fest) inside of it. I took pics with my tablet:













All those big white blobs...I don't think they're supposed to be there? Lol. So yeah, needless to say I didn't put it back in my rig after that.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

The white blobs, are for holding a component in place, most likely for soldering. Looks like a variant of silicone.

And that PSU isn't even considered old in my book! (2017, looking at one of the components) Looks like a QC issue!

I have a Corsair TX M 850 W (IIRC) PSU that's possibly the same year. It's actually in a rig that it's way overkill for, like putting a 1000W PSU into a stock PC with a GeForce GT 640, LOL!
It's in my Ryzen 5 2600 rig with an AsRock A320M/ac motherboard, but it has a Radeon RX 580.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

So the blobs are actually no cause for concern, then?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

So the blobs are actually no cause for concern, then?

The blobs that are white, are no cause of concern.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Thank the Maker! Unfortunately, it's getting a bit late here to start re-tinkering so I'll have to resume tomorrow.

I'll try what @Mussels recommended and swap out the ram first (now that I know the white blobs aren't anything to worry about) but I'm wondering, could something be up with the VRM on the board? Should I take the heatsinks off and have a peek?

 

[Mussels]

Thank the Maker! Unfortunately, it's getting a bit late here to start re-tinkering so I'll have to resume tomorrow.

I'll try what @Mussels recommended and swap out the ram first (now that I know the white blobs aren't anything to worry about) but I'm wondering, could something be up with the VRM on the board? Should I take the heatsinks off and have a peek?

only if you have new thermal pads to replace the stock ones with... and unless you're overclocked they wont be an issue IMO

 

[Atomic77]

I don't really know anything about the inside of a computer but the images that were posted look normal to me.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Spent the entire day literally working on my rig and just now @ 11:30pm have it up and ready to test yet again. In addition to swapping out my RAM, I also swapped my AIO for the 3600 stock fan because my gut tells me my issues are related to it and the software that controls it (iCUE)...but we'll see.

Firing up BFII now. Will be back soon.

 

[Mussels]

Spent the entire day literally working on my rig and just now @ 11:30pm have it up and ready to test yet again. In addition to swapping out my RAM, I also swapped my AIO for the 3600 stock fan because my gut tells me my issues are related to it and the software that controls it (iCUE)...but we'll see.

Firing up BFII now. Will be back soon.

icue is buggy, but tends to just crash out locking settings as they were - i dont think it's the cause
(that said you could have rare issues with the USB connector etc)

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Back from my testing with encouraging results! Played BFII for a good 2 hours or so, without a single shut down! Also, having removed my AIO and just using a couple fans on the top, I noticed a helluva lot more air exhausting from the top compared to the AIO -- and my case is a lot more quiet when playing BF II as well! So all in all, not a bad result.

That said, I think I'm going to plop my Trident Royals back in. They spoiled me, lol. I'm also going to think about selling my AIO/Commander PRO (I already uninstalled iCUE) and just get a nice air cooler instead (one that isn't a nightmare to mount like that Cooler Master fan I fought with for an hour before saying "fuck it" and chucking it back into my parts box. I honestly think the damn thing is defective...)