Okay, so I've been having this issue for a few months now. It started out small and didn't occur that often, and now I can't run my computer for more than 2 minutes without it happening. I've been playing World of Warcraft, and my computer would lockup/freeze to a black screen at random points while playing. Many other people playing the game have also had this issue, and it seems that it only occurs with custom built PCs. Processor and video card type make no difference, it occurs with both ATI and nVidia, Pentium and AMD. It may or may not be the exact same problem for every one, because many solutions have been found. I have heard many solutions such as underclocking memory, removing sound card, adding additional case fans, and many others. Some think it is a heat issue but I'm not totally sure that it is. Here's my personal situation:
It started occuring once and a while while playing World of Warcraft: the screen would go black, monitor would remain on and computer would remain running, no sound, and the system will not respond. The only way out of it is to reboot the computer manually*. I tired lowering the screen resolution, lowering the in-game video settings, updating video card drivers, and even ran system stress tests (which my system passed). Recently I had been removing the side of the case and directing a house fan on the interior, with the assumption that it was a heat problem. This did not seem to help at all.
I had been trying that for the past few days, and just yesterday things started to go really wrong. First I noticed that the power LED and hard drive LED on the front of my case did not light up anymore. This may or may not have anything to do with the problem, I don't know. And now in addition, I began getting the black screen freezes even outside of playing WoW, even when just browsing the internet in windows.
*Additional Note: When I get the system freeze and have to manually restart, the system will not reboot properly unless I turn the computer completely off and wait for about 3 minutes or so. If I try to reboot immediately, the computer will turn on, but the monitor will not recieve any signal. Sometimes I will recieve a message during the boot "Overclocking Failed!" that will prompt me to enter the BIOS and "reconfigure." It is interesting that I am not overclocking my system at all whatsoever.
All of this seems to scream out "HEAT ISSUE" to me, but I'm really not so sure, for the following reasons:
1) House fan did not help
2) I have felt the hardware components right after the crashes (risky, I know), and nothing is any more than warm.
3) Temperature monitors are giving perfectly normal temps
I really don't know what to do, I've tried so many different things. Any help would be appreciated.
