# [Troubleshooting] Black horizontal line across screen after dust cleaning + OC + Tita



## BlackLineBlues (Dec 18, 2016)

Hello,

I have a thin black line running horizontally across the top of my screen. It has been persistent for weeks now. If it were a few mm higher it would not even be noticeable. I have exhausted every option I can think of so far. Here is how it came to be:

I decided to dust out my pc with compressed air, I then played some overwatch and decided to OC my video card and CPU because my GPU temperatures were lowered from the cleaning.
I overclocked my 290 to 1100/1260 with MSI afterburner and my i5 3570k to 4.0 GHZ through the asrock z77 extreme 4 BIOS using these settings I found online:

Offset mode 

All Core=40 

Additional Turbo Voltage: +0.004v 

Offset Voltage: +0.005v 

Enhanced Halt State (C1E): Enabled 

CPU C3 State Support: Disabled 

CPU C6 State Support: Disabled 

Package C State Support: Disabled

Both seem to be mild OCs and after stress testing the temperatures never went about 80c for either CPU or GPU.
I downloaded Titanfall 2 to try, played it for about 20 minutes, then went back to overwatch and noticed the black horizontal line on my first game. The line is persistent on the desktop, browser and even the BIOS.

To attempt to fix this issue I immediately reverted my CPU and GPU to stock settings. Nothing.
Uninstalled titanfall 2, upgraded my graphics drivers, reseated my video card, changed resolutions, used the secondary DVI slot on my video card, killed all power to PC and monitor and hitting the power buttons to discharge them, still nothing.

I have reinstalled Windows 10 on a spare drive, updated my BIOS to the latest version, tried various different drivers for my video card, removed the video card and ran through onboard video only and even tried a different monitor with a different DVI cable and the problem is STILL there. I have no idea what else to try. 

It is NOT the video card.

It is NOT the monitor.

It is NOT Windows.

It is NOT the RAM. 

If it is hardware related I believe it must be either the motherboard, CPU or PSU because those are the only things I have not tried a replacement of. 

The line is very thin on the left side, and becomes a few mm thicker near the right side of the screen. 

I'm looking for suggestions on what else I could try to potentially fix this issue. I am currently unable to obtain a new motherboard/CPU/PSU, especially without knowing which might be causing the issue. They could all be fine and it could be something else entirely, I just do not know what else to try. 

Any help in resolving this issue would be greatly appreciated! Sorry if posted to the wrong place. I don't know what is causing this so I wasn't sure where to post


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## BlackLineBlues (Dec 18, 2016)

Bump. Any suggestions on what I can try?


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

It will NOT be these three things, your Motherboard, CPU or PSU!
It can only be one of these three things, your GPU, Monitor, or video cable.


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## BlackLineBlues (Dec 18, 2016)

Panther063 said:


> It will NOT be these three things, your Motherboard, CPU or PSU!
> It can only be one of these three things, your GPU, Monitor, or video cable.


Okay.

Except, I've already removed the video card from the system, set the BIOS to run off the iGPU and tried both 2x DVI and 2x HDMI cables on two different monitors (one brand new) which produced the exact same issue each time.

So no, it is not the GPU, monitor, or cables. It might not be the Motherboard, CPU or PSU either but those are the only things I can think of because I can't rule them out. The GPU, monitors and video cables have all been ruled out. 

Thanks for you reply anyway though and sorry for being salty, but I've been trying to fix this issue for weeks now and it has me feeling like :banghead: that I can't find the cause without ordering new parts and praying


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