I responded to a previous thread because it was the exact same problem, but that thread was marked as solved for the OP, so I thought I should make my own thread just in case.
 
My 2 day old EVGA GTX 970 is randomly crashing to black screen while playing Skyrim, after ~5-15 minutes. I can still hear the sound of the game, but monitors go completely black and only way to fix is a hard reset of the PC using the power button. GPU temperatures are not exceeding 70C, I've monitored them while playing - doesn't seem to be related to temperature at all. Hasn't happened in any other game so far, granted I've only played TF2, Borderlands:Pre-Sequel, and EVE Online besides Skyrim so far.
 
I'm really disappointed by this... Skyrim is one of the main games I play, and now my whole computer crashes while playing it for ~5-15 minutes... it's unplayable. My old computer with a crappy graphics card at least didn't completely crash playing Skyrim.....
 
The OP of the other thread said a BIOS update solved his problem, but imo that doesn't seem like the answer, because I have a completely different motherboard (ASrock h97m pro4) and I am experiencing same exact problem in same game. Seems like other people are having this black screen problem in a variety of games with GTX 970 from searches I've done.  Any suggestions or options here?
 
My PC Configurations (just built 2 days ago):
ASrock H97m pro4 motherboard
EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0
EVGA SuperNOVA 650G 650W Power Supply
Intel i5-4570 CPU
Kingston HyperX Fury 8Gb
Crucial MX100 256GB SSD
Windows 8.1
 
Edit: I ran some benchmarks/stress test to see if any hardwares issues. Ran EVGA OC Scanner X benchmark and FurMark benchmark/stress test - no errors or anything, card passed benchmarks/tests just fine. So I am assuming this is not a hardware issue then. So probably a nvidia graphics driver problem perhaps then? That seems logical, though in the past when I've have nvidia graphic driver issues, windows can usually recover with 'driver crashed, issue blah' and return to desktop - while this problem requires complete PC hard reset... still seems like graphics driver issue is most likely cuprit. In that case, I guess this issue should be taken to nvidia forums/bug reports instead of EVGA forums, eh?

Try this. Shut down all programs like precision or monitoring software, especially GeForce Experience. Uninstall all nvidia drivers through the control panel.
Restart your computer, and then reinstall the driver using the custom selection. Deselect everything, except for PhysX (you can't deselect the driver, so it is a given lol). Once the reinstall is complete, restart again.

Do not run precision or anything, and try playing again to see how it works. If it is good, then try it with precision on afterward if it starts crashing, then do not use precision while playing, until you can back date to something like Precision 4.2.1.

Scarlet-Tech
Try this. Shut down all programs like precision or monitoring software, especially GeForce Experience. Uninstall all nvidia drivers through the control panel.
Restart your computer, and then reinstall the driver using the custom selection. Deselect everything, except for PhysX (you can't deselect the driver, so it is a given lol). Once the reinstall is complete, restart again.

Do not run precision or anything, and try playing again to see how it works. If it is good, then try it with precision on afterward if it starts crashing, then do not use precision while playing, until you can back date to something like Precision 4.2.1.

I will try this - though I actually did not have Precision installed at all when these crashes originally started happening (I was monitoring temps with Open Hardware Monitor software). I only installed Precision afterwards (as in 2 hours ago) in hopes that maybe there would be something in the program that would help me. But didn't seem like that is the case :P
 
Update: OK, I followed your instructions - uninstalled all nvidia drivers/programs and precision x. reinstalled only nvidia driver and phyx during custom install. Booted up Skyrim, and lasted 4 minutes before complete black screen crash (both monitors crash, skyrim only playing on 1st monitor), and had to hard reset PC. There was no game sound persisting this crash - the whole PC went blank it seemed, video and audio. Only in Skyrim.... Full PC lockup/black screen seems extreme for a driver crash, but IDK maybe that's normal for nvidia driver crash nowadays
 
Not sure what else to do besides report driver issue for Skyrim-specific issue on GTX 970. I forget how to grab the dump info that nvidia will want, I will try to look that up and report this to nvidia - as this seems like nvidia's drivers fault and EVGA problem.

Well, after doing some reading on the nvidia forums, it seemed like some people were saying that the latest changes in nvidia drivers have been causing (even more) problems for GTX 970/980 cards. So I decided the uninstall the latest nvidia drivers (344.60) and install the 344.16 drivers (the earliest version for GTX 970/980 I believe). With 344.16 drivers, I was able to play Skyrim for 31 minutes with no crashing/graphical problems at all. It's not enough playtime to be completely certain (I can't play anymore tonight, it's way too late at night now) - but it seems like this older version of drivers may have fixed the problem (crosses fingers).
 
I will report back if problem is encountered again, but for now I'm going to say this solved the problem, as before I could hardly get to 10 minutes of play without crashing. So if anyone else is having driver problems/crashing with GTX 970, I might recommend reverting back to 344.16 nvidia drivers. Sorry for clogging EVGA forums with a problem that actually seems to be nvidia's fault, but these seemed like nice forums and this is my first time buying EVGA :)

Welp, I spoke way too soon. Problem still existed with 344.16 drivers, and I continue to get crashes in Skyrim...
I've taken the problem to nvidia forums/driver thread/bug report - as it seems like nvidia driver problem in my opinion.
Not sure how much more could be said here on these forums, but wanted to update and say that the problem definitely isn't fixed. In case anybody else has problem and searches for 'gtx 970 skyrim black screen crash' they will get here. :( 

Hi Morphe42,
 
I've had the same issue with my EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0. My game that gave me display signal loss on DVI was Batman Arkham Origins. This card had TDR issues as well with Skyrim. I tried drivers 344.11, 344.16, 344.48 and 344.60 with the same results. I did not have EVGA Precision X util installed either.
 
Coming from a previous EVGA 560 ti 448 editon and a EVGA 760 FTW 4 Gig card. I figured that the video card was the issue and had a RMA done.
None the less I ran my multimeter on the PSU on amp and voltage drawing just to rule it out. Working in parameter specs.
 
I've just receive my new RMA card and will test it today and get back with results.
 
My system specs:
Intel Core i7-3930K
Asus P9X79-Pro (latest bios)
32 Gigs Corsair Vengeance LP Ram
256GB OCZ Vertex 4
2x 2TB Western Digital Black drives
Corsair TX750 watt v2 PSU
 
Regards,
Malbojia
 
 

I think that's driver, people lot talk about black screen special over Display Port.
I notice on NVIDIA Forum customers ask for that. 3rd driver show up yesterday, for very short time and maybe is that confirmation. I hope NVIDIA want to optimize better new models.

Hi again Morphe, Sorry to hear about this.  I am very curious as to what is causing the issue, and hopefully Malboja will be able to provide more insight, since he/she has the same card and issue.   I will keep an eye on this and hope to see an easy fix come about.

Back on reporting my results.
 
I was sent a brand new card in the RMA and not a Refurb, which is great.
 
The new card is quite stable for now after testing it in Batman Arkham Origins, passing the benchmark test where the old 970 would black screen everytime resulting in a force reboot.
 
I've ran it through EVGA OC Scanner tests where I've noticed a pitch in coil whine been emitted, not enough to drive me crazy due to the location of the tower and my big headphones.
It's also passed Unigine Valley benchmark for 5 minutes. Still the coil whine is at a constant with vsync on or not. Closing the application shows a static 2d image, coil pitch increases in dB till the app closes.
 
I can always upload a video I've capture on request.
 
For now I'll play some games for a few days and see whether the new card starts to demonstrate similar issues or if the coil whine gets worse.
 
 Cheers
 

You may be encountering a software conflict. I would recommend performing a clean boot of windows to see if it helps with the situation. If the problem persists after clean boot try downclocking the card -105 from default clocks on both the core & memory then retest in skyrim. You should also try running Unigine Heaven 4.0 or Unigine Valley 1.0 as FurMark is flagged inside the NVIDIA driver and will not run the cards up to their full potential.