Screen goes black while playing gw2

[Geij.3691]

Hello,

I've been having this issue for more than a month and it's really starting to get to me. When playing gw2, sometimes my screen would go black and then just turn off, going power save mode. Sometimes i can play for hours, sometimes I crash 2 minutes after logging in. I can someday play for 3+ hours on eternal battleground with zergs all around, but when I enter Whisper of Jormag instance i'm almost guaranteed to crash during the fight, 2 minutes into any SAB zone and screen just turns off. This computer has been running gw2 fine for the last 4 years I own it. Lowering my graphic settings had no impact on the frequency of the crashes. I run other games (Sea of thieves, Dark Souls 3, Vermintide 2...) on medium graphic settings with no problem, and about a month ago gw2 wasn't causing any of those black screen.I opened a ticket more than 10 days ago, but so far the solutions they proposed did not fix the issue.

Here's a short list of everything we attempted so far :

Clean install of video drivers // All windows updatesRemoving all gw2 add-ons // Repairing game client // Reinstalling the entire gameRepaired winsock entries // Disabled all services running on startupUninstalled discord and xbox game barRan the game on compatibility mode (as computer was factored under W8)Every graphic setting in-game is on lowest possible // Image settings in nVidia control pannel set to performance*Ran the Windows System File Checker

None of those action solved the issue. I'm using W10 with an intel i5-4460 3.20GHz, the gpu is nvidia Geforce GTX 770If anyone happen to have the same problem please let me know. I'm posting here because despite a very responsive technical support, we have not been able to find a solution here.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

When I had that issue, it turned out to be a faulty hard drive.

[Firthiros.6913]

Maybe check your gpu temperature? Or any temperature in general? if your computer turns off at random, it usually has to do with temperatures.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Firthiros.6913 said:Maybe check your gpu temperature? Or any temperature in general? if your computer turns off at random, it usually has to do with temperatures.

Doesn't overheating usually lead to your PSU shutting down your whole system? Never heard of overheating turning off your monitor.

My guess is a faulty monitor. However, since Inculpatus cedo suggested they had an issue with the HDD that used to cause this, I'd also suggest you check your hard drive for errors.

[Geij.3691]

Thank you guys for your inputs.My computer doesn't turn off, only the monitor. I can still hear game sounds, interact in-game and communicate on voice chat when it happens.I'm playing the game from an external SSD, when I moved the game to HDD it didnt prevent the issue to happen.I tried with my 2 monitors separately, still had the blackscreen happen.It's happening systematicaly when I play PvP, SAB or strikes + at random times. It seems to not happen much in wvw even during large scale fights.Should I put the blame on my gpu just getting too old ?

[Firthiros.6913]

I would suggest checking your temperatures. If those are okay, then i dont think its the gpu. Does the screen turn black immediately or can you sometimes see a blue screen or similar? because if everything else still works (sounds, input etc.), it probably is not the computer itself. Maybe it's the power cord? Those are the 2 things i can come up with: a gpu turning off due to high temperature or a faulty power cord. Worse case scenario is that there is something within the screen itself that broke. Chances of that happening are small, though.

[Geij.3691]

I just downloaded afterburner again to check, started gw2, gpu goes from 45°C to about 60°, then i log into SAB and one minute into the instance, monitor does the usual 'no signal' before going power save. Still hear game sound but have to reboot blind.I doubt it's the power chord, as I mentioned i tried with 2 different monitors and it was happening with both.Screen just goes black. It behaves like the computer was turned off, HDMI plugged in, showing 'no signal' for a few seconds before going power save mode. But clearly the computer isn't off since I still hear what's happening in game or on voice chat and inputs actualy work.

[Firthiros.6913]

Maybe you could check your power management options and change the power plan to 'high performance'? (if that is not already the case). Windows has a hybrid power plan that may cause the computer to go into power saving mode.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

I got this issue once, then it was related to a bad Malwarebytes version which probably blocked some network traffic to ArenaNet.It took me quite some time to discover this, but I ultimately discovered the culprit by restoring my computer to an earlier date which restored the older Malwarebytes version. When I ran the malwarebytes update again, the problem returned.

But this was with some old Malwarebytes 3 version. The current 4.x versions never had this issue.

[Ashantara.8731]

(Sorry, missed that you had already done what I suggested here...)

[Geij.3691]

@Geij.3691 said:Here's a short list of everything we attempted so far :*Ran the Windows System File Checker

Thanks but it has been done, it did fix a couple of files but didn't prevent the issue to occur.

[Geij.3691]

Did everything you guys suggested. Nothing works. Issue persists and is now even more frequent whenever i'm in a snowy area. I tried running Dark souls 3 and Sea of Thieves on max graphic settings just to 'stress test' my gpu, and both those games work just fine, with few FPS drops when lot of stuff happen at once.

Yesterday I was all afternoon on ebg, no problem, game runs smoothly. I log on my SAB character and one minute into instance screen goes 'no signal' while i still have game sounds. I can't seem to understand what is causing this but it really looks like my gpu just shut down at some point, causing the screen to receive 'no signal' and going power save. It would be fine to say it's dying (770 from 2015) but it happens exclusively when I play gw2 ! Maybe something wrong with directx9 ?

I'm having this issue for more than a month now and starting to feel quite desperate. I'm not going to buy a new rig just to play my favorite mmo when the actual rig runs every other single game right ?

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@"Geij.3691" said:Did everything you guys suggested. Nothing works. Issue persists and is now even more frequent whenever i'm in a snowy area. I tried running Dark souls 3 and Sea of Thieves on max graphic settings just to 'stress test' my gpu, and both those games work just fine, with few FPS drops when lot of stuff happen at once.

Yesterday I was all afternoon on ebg, no problem, game runs smoothly. I log on my SAB character and one minute into instance screen goes 'no signal' while i still have game sounds. I can't seem to understand what is causing this but it really looks like my gpu just shut down at some point, causing the screen to receive 'no signal' and going power save. It would be fine to say it's dying (770 from 2015) but it happens exclusively when I play gw2 ! Maybe something wrong with directx9 ?

I'm having this issue for more than a month now and starting to feel quite desperate. I'm not going to buy a new rig just to play my favorite mmo when the actual rig runs every other single game right ?

Do you have access to another display? I have an ASUS PG348Q and GTX 970, and sometime it take sometime until it actually show a picture on display (even show that message about "no signal"). MS Windsow do a lot of changes from patch to patch and some of these have involved different powerstate which seem to mess up when there is older hardware that support part of what newer video card can do in putting video card into low power state (make sure in Nvidia driver that it is set to max performance mode for at least GW2 executable) and every display have also their own setting that can also be independent from Windows and video card drivers to put monitor in sleep mode when there is no signal or in sleep mode after some time (check display menu on display for how that have been set up - if you don't have your manual for display, then use google search for a PDF copy of it). Newer display also have can have support for apps that you can download that way control features on display, so you might need to check if your display also have something that might have been changed from an app that you don't use anymore (after you bought your display) that now acts up.

Then it is possible that there is a defect in your HDMI cable (some cable can become damage when they are twisted too much, you run over with wheels on a chair or from old age etc) and also its connection that you insert in each ends can become loose or damaged. Internally you also have to remember that there are connections from video card to provide enough power (GTX 770 I think didn't need that much power from PSU), If you PSU are old or low quality it might also create random problems when the strain get higher.

https://graphicscardhub.com/graphics-card-pcie-power-connectors/

Low power status is in general is complex matter with so many parts that need to work together, so make sure you Windows are set to use max performance setting (when pressing power button that it will power down computer instead of "sleep" or "hibernate"). Make sure that your power button is not going into those options (sleep/hibernate) and only work as a power button and restart button (hold longer and it will force a hardware restart of your computer, if your computer get stuck somehow).

Try to disable post processing in Options>video card section. When you talk about snow and SAB (which maybe use a lot of lightning and other effects). The game will look different with this off. Do you still have problems?

[Geij.3691]

I changed everything I could in windows settings to high performance, same in the nvidia control pannel.The game is running on 'performance' graphics settings, which mean everything is on lowest possible, post processing : none.Note that before I had the issue, all those windows/nvidia settings were still on default mode and gw2 was running with more than decent graphics.If it was the HDMI, or any hardware issue (?) it would cause problems when I play other games right ?

I'm mentioning SAB area because it seem to be the place where I'm guaranteed to crash within 2 minutes. Same goes for any strike mission that isn't in Sanctum Arena, sometimes I happened to crash after boss was killed in shiverpeak pass, and it seems like I can crash anywhere near the end of Forging steel. As I mentioned I was able to play for 3+ hours straight when staying on Eternal Battlegrounds, with tri factions big zergs around, only to crash 1 minutes into a solo SAB instance. Also any PvP game => crashes.

After two weeks exchanging with the CS, my computer has never been so fast to start, there is literaly not a single other program or service running when I start the game, yet it still turns off my monitor at some point, like graphic driver were no longer responding or something.

I'm pretty sick of rebooting my PC all day long, I just want to play the game that has been working mighty fine for 5+ years

[faithless.2953]

Was having the same issue as you. Screen goes black, sound etc still playing in the background. Upgraded my graphics card and haven't had black screen for a few weeks now.

[Geij.3691]

So basically you're suggesting that I buy new hardware to play GW2 while any other game runs just fine with good graphic settings ?Thanks for the input but i'll just stick to other games for now.

[Shifty.9724]

Just wanted to say that I began having a similar issue 4 days ago, prior to that I was able to run GW2 fine. When I am playing in windowed-fullscreen, I get the following error: "Guild Wars 2 has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error and must terminate."

When playing fullscreen, most of the time I I get a black screen and I still see the GW2 cursor and hear in-game sounds, an alt+tab will bring the game graphics back. Other times I will get the "no input detected" message and my monitor will go into power-saving mode. Support has offered me the same fix actions and they did not work for me either. I did notice that in the Windows event log there is an error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." that coincides with my screen going black. This happens randomly, sometimes I can go a few hours, other times it will happen every minute.

I am running an i7-9700k and a 2080 Ti. I've tried reverting to older drivers and a full Windows 10 reinstall.

[Player.9621]

this issue used to plague me to the point i actually quit playingi never really did figure it out completely but my best guess is its from timing out from the servermake sure your network adapters are not set to sleep on idle and remain powered full timedevice manager - network adapters - r click whatever youre using - power management and uncheck the options

[Gundahar.2765]

Are you sure your monitor turns off, or its just blackscreen? Because sometimes i get crashes too, and it either shows an error or just black screen. A monitor to turn off like that after a crash is weird. So far you tried pretty much anything, with no result. If you have windows 10, maybe try disable game mode/bar.Ultimately, get WindowsFocusLogger, run it after you started the game and when the game will crash, check if theres any activity logged. It traces any background action executed, so it might direct you to a faulty driver or whatever the cause might be. Worth a shot at this point.

[Ashantara.8731]

Have you tried enabling/disabling Hyper-Threading in your BIOS/UEFI settings and see if that changes anything? Are all cores enabled for Hyper-Threading?

Have you tried replacing your CMOS battery?

[Brubs Chan.2506]

I'm having this problem... only in Guild Wars 2. The other games work fine... but Guild Wars 2 goes black screen and I keep hearing the game sound, but I have to shut down the PC by the button because it does not come back.

[Brubs Chan.2506]

On 4/17/2020 at 2:29 PM, Geij.3691 said:

Hello,

I've been having this issue for more than a month and it's really starting to get to me. When playing gw2, sometimes my screen would go black and then just turn off, going power save mode. Sometimes i can play for hours, sometimes I crash 2 minutes after logging in. I can someday play for 3+ hours on eternal battleground with zergs all around, but when I enter Whisper of Jormag instance i'm almost guaranteed to crash during the fight, 2 minutes into any SAB zone and screen just turns off. This computer has been running gw2 fine for the last 4 years I own it. Lowering my graphic settings had no impact on the frequency of the crashes. I run other games (Sea of thieves, Dark Souls 3, Vermintide 2...) on medium graphic settings with no problem, and about a month ago gw2 wasn't causing any of those black screen.I opened a ticket more than 10 days ago, but so far the solutions they proposed did not fix the issue.

Here's a short list of everything we attempted so far :

Clean install of video drivers // All windows updatesRemoving all gw2 add-ons // Repairing game client // Reinstalling the entire gameRepaired winsock entries // Disabled all services running on startupUninstalled discord and xbox game barRan the game on compatibility mode (as computer was factored under W8)Every graphic setting in-game is on lowest possible // Image settings in nVidia control pannel set to performance*Ran the Windows System File Checker

None of those action solved the issue. I'm using W10 with an intel i5-4460 3.20GHz, the gpu is nvidia Geforce GTX 770If anyone happen to have the same problem please let me know. I'm posting here because despite a very responsive technical support, we have not been able to find a solution here.

I know it's been a while since you created this post... but did you manage to resolve the issue? I can't do it at all... I've already contacted support and nothing they said works... MY Config: i5 3330, GTX 7702GB, 8GB RAM DDR3, HDD 500GB, Windows 10 PRO

[DrCereal.1765]

I'm getting the exact same issue. No other game gives me problems. But GW2 constantly gives me a black-screen crash. Audio continues to play, but screen turns off. Clearly a GPU crash. Only GW2 does this, so I doubt it's a HW issue.

[Tukaram.8256]

11 minutes ago, DrCereal.1765 said:

I'm getting the exact same issue. No other game gives me problems. But GW2 constantly gives me a black-screen crash. Audio continues to play, but screen turns off. Clearly a GPU crash. Only GW2 does this, so I doubt it's a HW issue.

I have been told that GW2 is more CPU intensive than GPU, which is a shame as my machine has a smokin hot GPU... 

I had the black screen problem on my old computer and people told me it was an overheat issue.  The machine was clean, and all 4 fans were working, but the house is in the jungle and we had no aircon. So I took off the side panel and added a USB desktop fan, aimed at the CPU.  Never got the black screen again. 😎

[Mrxpaygox.7920]

One day before the launch of EOD I wrote this post:

 I hope some of you may find this hopeful. I've been having the same issue for years.