Games causing a black screen

Question

I have a custom built computer that has been working flawlessly for about a year now. It was designed for gaming first with light office work on the side. Last month I decided to buy a new monitor and I decided on an AOC U32G4.

This monitor is causing my games to crash. The screen will go black, sound will continue from other sources such as YouTube or Discord (I can keep talking on discord forever), but game sounds will stutter (continue playing but never change). I know its the monitor because I switched back to the old one (a QHD LG monitor) and all the problems went away.

In my trouble shooting I have erased all my hard drives, reinstalled windows, cleared CMOS, reset the BIOS, used DDU multiple times, reinstalled my nVidia drivers a number of times, tried the game ready and studio ready versions, ran Windows Memory diagnostic, stress tested my GPU and GPU VRAM, and even removed an old SATA hard drive in the system. I have tried plugging the monitor in with an HDMI and DP cables (the ones that came with it) and also ones that did not come with it.

The monitor is a nice monitor for $300 and I'd actually like to keep it. It works great ALLL day long, but as soon as I turn the games on it will crash within 30 minutes.

Because my old monitor works I am convinced this is not a graphics driver issue, a hardware issue, a power supply issue, or an overheating issue.

I believe the issue has to do with either G Sync, V Sync, Variable Refresh Rate, Adaptive sync or something along those lines (a monitor setting). I have been trying to enable and disable these features together across the hardware and software and I cannot get it to work. Meaning, I set the monitors settings, the windows settings, the nVidia settings, and game settings all to the same thing in the hopes there is no conflict and I don't know what to do. The new Monitor is running at 4k 160hz rather than QHD 165hz. I cables claim they support the necessary bandwidth. If they didn't I feel like the games would crash immediately if that was the problem. The crashes are not reproducible. Some happen in 2 minutes, some happen 30 minutes into gaming.

If anyone has an tips on how I can trouble shoot this or knows with certainty I should just return the monitor please let me know.

I am using Windows 11 Home

Gigabyte x870e Pro Ice

Ryzen 9800x3D

Asus TUF 5080

48GB DDR Corsair Dominator 7200

AOC U32G4 Monitor with Dual mode 4k 160hz, 1080p 320hz

Answer 1

Hi,

I find it unlikely to be a Windows issue, given that you tested with another monitor and reinstalled Windows multiple times yet the problem persists; it seems more likely to be hardware-related—or perhaps a specific feature of the monitor itself.

Just to be sure: does the problem happen randomly? In other words, is there no specific timing to it?

Did you try testing with different resolutions and refresh rates, and did the problem still occur?

Have you tested the new monitor on another PC?

I’ve seen a similar issue before—back when Ashes of Creation was out—and in that case, it was caused by the Nvidia "Max Frame Rate" setting.

Does the problem happen with any game, or just a specific one?

Thanks.