display remains black after 'waking'

[pmv]

Having a problem with my PC...or it might be the monitor - not sure which.

Roughly 50% of the time when I power the PC up, or come out of hibernate mode (more often the latter) the monitor will remain black (but it does come out of sleep mode, according to the activity light, it just doesn't show anything).

Sometimes it will come back to life after a minute, sometimes it will (infuriatingly) take up to half an hour, and often it will come back to life for a few seconds and then go off again, and do this several times over several minutes before eventually deciding to start working normally.

Once it pulls itself together it will be fine for hours - unless you go away for a while and let the PC or monitor 'sleep'.

The monitor _is_ getting a signal of some kind as the active light goes blue for 'awake' rather than yellow for 'no signal'. If I unplug the monitor cable it will indeed report 'no signal' and the light will go yellow. Then it goes blue again when plugged in again, but the picture remains black.

Very occasionally the screen will come to life but with a distorted image, the sort of distorted image you get when your PC thinks your monitor is a TV or is trying to display at a bad resolution/refresh rate. Then it goes away again and comes back normally.

It seems to have something to do with 'sleep' mode - as if the graphics card (or some part of the monitor's circuitry) refuses to wake up.

Something I just discovered (which points to the PC not the monitor), is that a surefire way to get the monitor to come on normally again when this happens is to hit the power button on the PC and try to shut it down.

Then the display will suddenly reappear to show that list of 'applications that are refusing to shut down' list you get with a sudden shutdown attempt. Then I cancel the shut down and everything is fine again.

I notice a thread here mentions a similar issue with an AMD card, and that using win-L brings the display to life - think I'll try that next time it happens.

Any ideas as to what the problem is?

Thanks.

(Windows 7, gtx770)

(or should this be under 'computer help'? )

 

[MeldarthX]

we need several things from you; one....video card; we really can't help without knowing what card you have. Best to list specs of your PC. Monitor; what is it?

Also what drivers are you using and have you changed cards recently? What cable are you using?

Sounds like Nvidia card as you mention AMD wake up issue which is a weird one....

We need more info

 

[pmv]

we need several things from you; one....video card; we really can't help without knowing what card you have. Best to list specs of your PC. Monitor; what is it?

Also what drivers are you using and have you changed cards recently? What cable are you using?

Sounds like Nvidia card as you mention AMD wake up issue which is a weird one....

We need more info

Well I did say GTX770 (though maybe you saw the post in the few seconds before I edited it to add that!). I can't actually remember the specific card manufacturer...[opens case]...and there's nothing on the card to say!
Its 2Gb though.

drivers, fair question, need to check that, but I updated them after the problem started a couple of months ago and it made no difference.
nvidia control panel says its 344.75

Its a HDMI cable. A generic one.
28" monitor, HannsG (cheap, and now quite old, right now forget the exact model name - maybe hg281d).

Haven't changed cards, pc is only a bit over a year old, started doing this a couple of months ago, it seems to have gotten worse.

i5-4670K and nothing is overclocked

Oh, and its 64bit windows 7

 

[MeldarthX]

Hehe I saw your post before editing.... so makes sense. So when you unplug and plug the hdmi cable back in it still black....but at some point it wakes up and has no issues.

Do you have any other cables around to try? dvi? another hdmi cable? Do you know which driver you had before this started happening?

 

[pmv]

Hehe I saw your post before editing.... so makes sense. So when you unplug and plug the hdmi cable back in it still black....but at some point it wakes up and has no issues.

Do you have any other cables around to try? dvi? another hdmi cable? Do you know which driver you had before this started happening?

I have other cables - the tricky bit is testing them when the problem is so intermittent.

I had the most up to date certified driver from a year ago, and might have updated it once...don't really remember.

Have now turned sleep mode off entirely. Went out, left computer on and monitor off, came back, turned on monitor, saw display briefly, then it went off again, then came back after a couple of minutes. Now its working normally again. Still can't figure out if its the monitor or the graphics card. If it happens after the monitor has been off but the PC has been on, what does that imply?

 

[MeldarthX]

do you have something else you could test your system on? TV through hdmi; if you do that and it doesn't do the same; then you know its the monitor; if it does do it...

Then its the card and I'd say drivers. Have you tried the latest drivers from Nvidia? *yep these things can be a pain; but process of elimination we'll get it solved*

 

[pmv]

do you have something else you could test your system on? TV through hdmi; if you do that and it doesn't do the same; then you know its the monitor; if it does do it...

Then its the card and I'd say drivers. Have you tried the latest drivers from Nvidia? *yep these things can be a pain; but process of elimination we'll get it solved*

Well, have swapped hdmi cable. Have downloaded latest drivers, will install later. Just have to carry on using pc for a couple of days with the new cable (and new drivers) and see if anything changes. Then try something else.
I have another monitor, but its a big hassle to get it so it can be used with this pc.

When the thing is working I can't face messing about with it, as I need to use it...then one day I turn it on and its in a bad mood again and its a 30 minute wait for it to decide to wake up.

I'm just hoping its not an actual hardware failure with the gfx card but is just a driver thing.

 

[pmv]

OK, so new drivers and new cable didn't solve the problem. Have now managed to swap the monitor (for a smaller, older, one) and will see if that helps. I would far, far prefer it was the (elderly) monitor that was the problem than the relatively new (but just out of warranty) gfx card. Its mostly the monitor I've been hurling abuse at, so there would be more justice in that.

 

[MeldarthX]

LOL; oh I've been there; but best bet is also try on your TV if you can to see if it does the same at some point......

If it does then we know its down to card and drivers...... *best way to save that poor monitor from more abuse being hurled at it *

 

[pmv]

Very early to say, but its looking as if using this monitor has made the problem go away.
The only problem is, as this monitor is smaller and lower-res, can I be sure its not just that its less demanding of the graphics card and that the problem is still at that end?

I've already started eyeing up new monitors. May start a new thread on that.

 

[MeldarthX]

sounds like other monitor is going them; most likely has to done with power caps; at least one has gone and another is going.

 

[Ketchup]

It sounds like the monitor to me as well. The "good" part is that hitting the power button on the PC is a nice little workaround (IMO) for the time being.