Black screen + GPU’s fans to max speed

[BronzeBowl]

Hi! So last year I started having problems with my PC. GTX 1080ti, i74770K, Maximus VI Gene, 16GB DDR3 @1886Mhz. I know, almost prehistoric.

Every single game would crash to desktop with a loud BRRRR sound that lasted a second (like a super quick looping audio sample from the second the game crashed). Then some games would reboot my PC out of nowhere, or straight up turn it off. Then, these issues started appearing even by just browsing or literally doing nothing. Sometimes the screen would go green or pink and everything looked like it was mirrored. Some game engines would claim the GPU was disconnected, others that DX crashed. Weird thing is, I could let OCCT stress the RAM, GPU and CPU to 100% overnight, and the PC would still be on and running like a charm until I tried to game.

At this point I tried:

• Reinstalling drivers via Nvcleanstall and directly from Nvidia’s website.
• Making sure nothing was overclocking.
• Set BIOS back to defaults + Reinstalling latest BIOS.
• Reinstalled Windows 11, and also tried with W10.
• Reseated the GPU and RAM.
• All temps were bellow 60°C when gaming but ended up cleaning and applying Thermal Grizzly paste to both CPU and GPU. My PC has always been clean and visibly free of dust.

Since nothing of this helped, I assumed it was a PSU issue and I noticed some PSU cables being squished by the liquid cooler radiator and the case, so I ended up ordering a ROG THOR Platinum 2 and a Fractal Design North case.

Well, after connecting everything, I booted into Windows, opened Firefox and BAM! Black screen + GPU fans running at max speed. I noticed that after 10 seconds of running at max speed, the speed would rapidly down and up, almost as if the fans where gasping, for 5 or so seconds, and then they’d go back to normal speed. So then I:

• Changed RAM sticks to the ones I used to use years ago. Tried stick by stick, on each of the 4 slots.
• Reinstalled Windows on different drives.
• Ran Manjaro via LiveUSB.
• Tried with an even older GPU: A GTX770 Windforce.
• Tried running in safe mode.

So after this, I noticed that with the 1080ti, Manjaro won’t crash but the screen will suddenly turn amber color and mirrored. Safe mode works like a charm with zero issues, also It works great UNTIL I install drivers, regardless if they are new or from 2022. With the other GPU, the PC works fine but games crash on Windows after a few minutes, and the screen goes green if I run Manjaro for too long. I was kinda relieved that both my cards present these issues and not just the 1080ti, but I’m lost here… I kinda think it might be the motherboard, but what would you guys think it could be?