So I'm having this computer problem where my screen will freeze up with whatever's on the screen and the audio will loop the past half a second or so. This has happened multiple (10ish?) times while playing various games and even a few times where I was simply web browsing. When I try rebooting, it seems like random luck if I actually get any screen output... The motherboard powers up, fans come on, the hard drive's on, but no output. My computer is about 3 years old aside from this new video card I got in the summer, and I haven't had any troubles before this card. So, I'm thinking it's the graphics card, although I guess it could potentially be the motherboard or PSU. I have the latest drivers for the video card and was considering updating my BIOS although I read that can be risky and it should be determined that the BIOS is positively the problem before updating it.

It could be anything. The motherboard. The BIOS. The GPU. The RAM. The PSU. Are you even able to watch the system POST or does that not even display? Do you get any diagnostic beeps? If so, look them up in your board's manual. Also, have you updated all the firmware for your board?

The first thing you need to do is run memtest86+ for as long as possible. I'd say give it a full 24hrs worth of test passes. If the memory (either the ram modules themselves or your board's DIMM banks) are bad, you'll surely encounter errors within that time. Maybe on the first past or maybe on the twentieth.

If that checks out fine, the next thing I'd consider is wiping your install and doing a fresh install of your OS and card drivers. If the problem still happens after that, find another card that you can test or put the card in another machine and see if the same problem occurs while running some burn-in/benchmarking GPU tests. Doing this with another PSU would also be worth testing.

Also check that you don't have any loose cables and that everything is seated properly and not potentially shorting out.

Before you can start to RMA things, you really need to begin the process of vetting each component and eliminating them as possible causes. Chances are that, based on those descriptions, your video card vendor will suggest that it's a possible memory or PSU issue, so at least running memtest will help you with one or two elements.

Update your gpu bios - Nvidia released a bios update that fixed a similar issue (black screen crashes, audio stuck). So it may help.

@Branthog said:

It could be anything. The motherboard. The BIOS. The GPU. The RAM. The PSU. Are you even able to watch the system POST or does that not even display? Do you get any diagnostic beeps? If so, look them up in your board's manual. Also, have you updated all the firmware for your board?

The first thing you need to do is run memtest86+ for as long as possible. I'd say give it a full 24hrs worth of test passes. If the memory (either the ram modules themselves or your board's DIMM banks) are bad, you'll surely encounter errors within that time. Maybe on the first past or maybe on the twentieth.

If that checks out fine, the next thing I'd consider is wiping your install and doing a fresh install of your OS and card drivers. If the problem still happens after that, find another card that you can test or put the card in another machine and see if the same problem occurs while running some burn-in/benchmarking GPU tests. Doing this with another PSU would also be worth testing.

Also check that you don't have any loose cables and that everything is seated properly and not potentially shorting out.

Before you can start to RMA things, you really need to begin the process of vetting each component and eliminating them as possible causes. Chances are that, based on those descriptions, your video card vendor will suggest that it's a possible memory or PSU issue, so at least running memtest will help you with one or two elements.

I can't see anything when the computer is powered on currently and there are no beeps, everything seems to power up fine, I just get absolutely no output. That's whats leading me to believe it has to be a straight up GPU problem because it'd have to be something severely wrong to get absolutely nothing from powering up the computer, and yet I can go from getting absolutely nothing on the screen to the computer working fine for weeks at a time before locking up again. However, I've tried about 10-15 times to boot the computer and it's still just a black screen, so I can't really do any memory testing but I have another video card to try in the computer in a few days, which should help narrow down my suspicions. If that doesn't boot the computer up right, I guess I'll have to look into a PSU.

Update:

So, I've tried a different GPU, and still got just a black screen a few times, then once it started to boot and froze during Windows loading. I've also tested the PSU and all the voltages seem normal... So now it would seem it pretty much has to be the motherboard right? If it was the CPU/RAM shouldn't I get some beeps from the motherboard?

http://www.memtest86.com/ - run that to check your ram. have you also checked your HD, could be it too.

@mosdl said:

http://www.memtest86.com/ - run that to check your ram. have you also checked your HD, could be it too.

The computer won't make it into Windows at all now. If I power it up, the motherboard lights up, the hard drive revs up, fans are on, video card fans on, but still just a black screen. I should definitely be getting at least to BIOS with a bad HD, no?

A quick check to see if it is RAM, is to just take a stick out and see if that helps. If not, put it back in and remove a different stick.

Concerning the BIOS and HDD, you may have an issue with your SATA port. I had an issue before where my SATA port was partially fried. It worked for the most part until vital stuff needed to happen. Swapped ports and everything worked fine. You may want to try different ports. You could also try just disconnecting your Hard Drive and see if you can get into the BIOS. The BIOS may be getting tripped up on the faulty Hard Drive. Time to start the process of the elimination!

I also don't know exactly what you are seeing, but if you aren't seeing anything at all, could it be your monitor took a crap? Are you at least seeing a post screen or motherboard logo screen?