MSI Afterburning (No Overclock; Program Itself) Causing Games to Launch with Black Screen

[Gmod4ever]

Just to get this information out of the way:

[b]GPU:[/b] Nvidia GTX 680m
[b]CPU:[/b] Intel Core i7-3920XM @ 2.9GHz
[b]GPU Driver:[/b] 331.65 (updated October 28, 2013)
[b]Notebook model:[/b] Sager 9170NP (Clevo P170EM)

Okay, now the issue.

So, I decided to try overclocking my GPU, because I feel it is seriously underperforming (gpuboss claims it should average 45 frames per second on Bioshock Infinite maximum settings at 1920 x 1080 resolution; I average around 20 frames per second with everything turned off and texture quality on medium, 1920 x 1080 resolution). I looked around, and everywhere I saw suggested MSI Afterburner for the Nvidia GTX 680M in the Sager 9170NP, which is what I have. So I got Afterburner.

Since Speccy does not pick up my GPU temps, I decided to run Afterburner [b]without any overclocking at all[/b], just to see my GPU temps. It seems to idle at about 65*C, and playing back video in Source Filmmaker kicks it up to 89*C. I then decided to see what my temps are like playing Bioshock Infinite and Metro Last Light.

I can play both of these games perfectly fine without MSI Afterburner running. However, if I launch them with Afterburner running, they immediately black-screen. I get absolutely no picture at all (no flicker to blackscreen; it just starts black). I have to ctrl-alt-delete to bring up the task manager to get out - not even ctrl-shift-escape works. I get approximately a quarter-second of sound out of Metro Last Light (almost the first complete note of the intro music), and then all sound cuts out. I can do this, have it blackscreen, end the process, close out of MSI, and then immediately launch Metro without any problems whatsoever, without so much as even closing any background windows, let alone a reboot, so I know it is Afterburner.

I have Googled around and the only other person with a problem like this I could find got absolutely no help. All other "black screen" issues I have seen are either "random crashes that happen in the middle of the game requiring a computer restart to solve" or "black screen freezes while recording game footage," neither of which are my particular problem.

Does anyone have any ideas at all as to what is causing this? Or should I just deal with having this underperforming GPU, like I have for the past two years?

[sam.clarke]

It sounds like it could be an application setting that Afterburner driver is running causing your black screens. I've never used the program but can't comment on specific settings but I would disable all application settings on the Afterburner driver and then see how your programs run, from there on it it would be a case of trial and error by enabling each setting

Try using Rivatuner as an alternative. I have been using it for a good few years without issue.