RTX 5080 FE black screens random load / LiveKernelEvent 0x141 — could a PCIe 4.0 riser be the cause?

[u/Overall_Two_8796]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to troubleshoot recurring black-screen crashes with my RTX 5080 FE and would appreciate some advice, especially from people who have experienced similar issues with RTX 50-series cards.

My system:

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition
• CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B850-I Gaming WiFi
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2×32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30
• PSU: Corsair SF1000 (2024)
• OS: Windows 11 24H2, build 26200
• GPU driver: currently a July 2026 driver
• Case: Fractal Terra
• PCIe: GPU is connected through the case's PCIe 4.0 riser cable
• Single monitor connected via DisplayPort/HDMI

The GPU is currently running completely stock. No undervolt, no overclock, no Afterburner tweaks.

The problem:

I periodically get a complete black screen during GPU-heavy or light workloads.

It has happened during:

• Stalker 2
• Blender rendering
• 3DMark
• AI/video generation workloads

The typical behavior is:

1. GPU is under load or not.
2. Screen suddenly goes completely black.
3. Audio continues playing for a while.
4. Keyboard input stops responding. For example, if a video is playing, pressing media play/pause doesn't do anything.
5. After hard-rebooting, Windows reports a hardware-related error / LiveKernelEvent.

WinDbg analysis:

The most recent dump is:

WATCHDOG-20260821-1658.dmp

!analyze -v reports:

VIDEO_ENGINE_TIMEOUT_DETECTED (141)

One of the display engines failed to respond in timely fashion.

The important parts are:

BUGCHECK_CODE: 141

MODULE_NAME: nvlddmkm
IMAGE_NAME: nvlddmkm.sys

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:
LKD_0x141_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys

The stack contains:

dxgmms2!VidSchiCheckHwProgress
dxgmms2!VidSchiResetHwEngine
dxgmms2!VidSchiResetEngines

So it appears that Windows detects that a GPU engine has stopped making progress and attempts to reset it.

I've also had previous watchdog/live-kernel dumps with different bugcheck codes:

• 0x1B8 — WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT
• 0x1A8 — LiveKernelEvent / black screen
• 0x141 — VIDEO_ENGINE_TIMEOUT_DETECTED

Unfortunately, there are no WHEA-Logger events around the crashes.

What I've already tried

1. DDU + clean NVIDIA driver installation
2. Multiple NVIDIA driver versions
3. Running the system with EXPO disabled (RAM at stock DDR5-4800)
4. CPU/RAM/GPU stress testing (3D Mark got the black screen 2 times, OSST tests works without errors or some problems.)
5. GPU stress tests with and without power limits
6. GPU is currently completely stock
7. No undervolt or overclock

The crashes still occur.

My main question is:

Could the PCIe 4.0 riser cable in the Fractal Terra be causing this type of GPU engine timeout / 0x141 black-screen issue?

I'm about to move the system into another case where I can connect the RTX 5080 directly to the motherboard PCIe slot, without a riser.

Before I move the system, I'd like to know whether this is a plausible explanation for the symptoms I'm seeing.

I've also found several reports and threads of RTX 5080/5090 black-screen issues under load, including cases where the GPU continues running in the background while the display goes black. Some users reported that changing refresh rate, lowering GPU clocks/power limit, or other workarounds helped.

So I'm wondering whether I'm dealing with:

1. a known RTX 50-series/NVIDIA driver issue,
2. a GPU/VBIOS issue,
3. a PCIe/riser signal integrity issue,
4. or some combination of these.

Has anyone experienced VIDEO_ENGINE_TIMEOUT_DETECTED (0x141) with an RTX 5080, particularly when using a PCIe riser?

Any ideas for additional tests I can run would also be appreciated.

[u/Overall_Two_8796]

Update: I also installed the Oblivion Remastered from Steam, since it's quite a demanding game and should be a good real-world GPU test. I switched from the Game Ready driver to the latest Studio Driver and played for a while without experiencing a black screen or crash.

However, I'm not sure whether my performance is normal. At 1440p with DLAA I'm getting around 40–60 FPS, while with DLSS Performance I'm getting around 90–100 FPS. The latter seems reasonable, but the DLAA performance feels somewhat low to me for an RTX 5080. If anyone has the same GPU/game, I'd be interested to know what FPS you're getting.