Question Displays losing signal randomly ?

[Bigshoots]

Both of my displays seem to be losing signal for whatever reason for a few seconds and then come back on like nothing happened. It's been driving me crazy and this has been happening since January While I though this was a Nvidia problem with drivers or with my new GPU which is a 3070, it isn't I believe. Here's a list of things I think aren't the problem. It's also artifacting now as well.

• I don't think it's the monitors as both of them were working prior to the new GPU and I've RMA'ed one having received a new monitor in return with it doing the same issue. Monitor 1 is a Viewsonic vx3268-2kpc-mhd and the other one is a MSI Optix G27C2. Problem is happening on both of them.
• I've swapped out DP cables so I don't think it's that.
• My OS has been completely reinstalled and updated to the latest in Windows 10. Also has been installed on a recently purchased M.2.
• I've flashed my BIOS to the latest update and everything is set to default settings in it.
• I don't believe it to be my GPU as I've swapped out my 3070 with my old 970 and it was still having the issue. Drivers have also been reinstalled in collaboration with DDU in safe mode numerous times.
• I also don't believe it to be a freesync/g-sync compatible issue. I've had this turned on forever and it's never caused me any issues. I'm open to suggestions though. One monitor is running at 1440p 120hz and the other is at 1080p 120hz. Both have the g-sync compatibility on.

 

[DRagor]

After previous Windows update I had similar problem: both my monitors were blacking out for a few seconds at random times. Turned out Windows installed wrong GPU drivers together with update. Installing correct one did help ... only until Windows installed wrong one again Not saying its the same thing, but take a look at nvidia drivers and make sure they are indeed correct one.

 

[Bigshoots]

After previous Windows update I had similar problem: both my monitors were blacking out for a few seconds at random times. Turned out Windows installed wrong GPU drivers together with update. Installing correct one did help ... only until Windows installed wrong one again Not saying its the same thing, but take a look at nvidia drivers and make sure they are indeed correct one.

How exactly would I go about checking this? Through device manager right? I went to my GPU in the manager and it says that the driver is provided by Nvidia. Not to mention, I downloaded GeForce Experience when I put my OS on my M.2, so it should have installed the correct drivers right?

 

[DRagor]

How exactly would I go about checking this? Through device manager right? I went to my GPU in the manager and it says that the driver is provided by Nvidia. Not to mention, I downloaded GeForce Experience when I put my OS on my M.2, so it should have installed the correct drivers right?

Just fire Nvidia Control Panel and check there is driver installed currently IS the same you installed. Because as my example shows Windows can sneakily change the driver to different version.

 

[Bigshoots]

Just fire Nvidia Control Panel and check there is driver installed currently IS the same you installed. Because as my example shows Windows can sneakily change the driver to different version.

I'm 100% certain that the Nvidia are drivers installed instead of some window drivers. Everything is reading out as the latest Nvidia drivers.

 

[DRagor]

Ok. Next time when this happens enter the Event Viewer and look for any errors (marked in red) that happen exactly or just before losing signal. Come back with anything you find.

 

[Bigshoots]

I've actually been doing this for a while and there's almost never any sorta errors that happen in the event viewer that dictate what's happening behind the losing signal. I even took a look in the reliability history and there's just nothing.

 

[DRagor]

So one more thing before we can assume it's not drivers. You mentioned it started happening in Jan. Try rolling back Nvidia drivers to version from previous year. Don't have much hope it will work but still worth trying.
Another thing, have you trying running only one monitor at a time? Does it change anything?

 

[Bigshoots]

I've tried rolling back drivers awhile ago but it didn't quite help my case. I tried only doing one monitor last night and everything seemed fine, but this issue comes and goes very randomly so I'll need to leave my secondary monitor off for a longer amount of time and see if anything else happens. Even if it was the secondary monitor which was causing it (And I fully think that now it is), how would it be the problem? I'm not disagreeing that it could be the problem, it just seems so weird that one monitor would cause both monitors to have spasms such as losing signal and producing slight artifacts.

 

[DRagor]

Actually I'm not suspecting bad monitor. I'm considering a problem with either GPU not being able to run two DP cables at same time, or even an odd chance of interference between the cables.

I've swapped out DP cables

By that, do you mean connecting monitor A with cable B and vice versa, or you mean a pair of different DP cables?

 

[Bigshoots]

Well the GPU I've had before my 3070 was a 1060 and it ran two DP cables just fine. The only difference in that scenario was I had two of my MSI Optix monitors and I didn't have the Viewsonic one. Both monitors at the time were running at 1080p 144hz with g-sync compatibility on. However, now that I've had the new monitor, I've tried both a 3070 and 970 to run my new monitor setup (the msi and the viewsonic) with both of them giving me this issue. I think you could be right about it not being able to run to DP cables, but why wouldn't it be able to? The only difference in our current scenario is a new monitor that's only running at 1440p as opposed to 1080p and I've also turned both down from 144hz to 120hz with gsync still being on.

I've swapped both cables connecting my monitors with each other and even bought a brand new one to use with the problem still persisting.

 

[DRagor]

I think you could be right about it not being able to run to DP cables, but why wouldn't it be able to?

Normally it shouldn't matter, just as it didn't with your 1060. But clearly it's not normal situation. I don't have any answers yet, just trying to get as much data as possible. The goal is to get different behavior, then we analyze what was done to achieve that behavior and then maybe we can find an answer. If not we try something different and see what it does - and we repeat that until there is enough data to find a pattern.
Now, once you are sure (convinced would be better word here) that running only your main monitor does not cause the problem, I would ask to repeat that test with only secondary monitor connected. For the next steps, can any of your monitors run at current refresh rate with any other type of cable? I'm assuming your GPU has only HDMI and DP ports so the question really is if they can run at 120 Hz on HDMI? Because that would be the next test, to run one of the monitors on HDMI cable. But it does not make much sense if you had to lower refresh rate to do so.

 

[Bigshoots]

I'll run these tests throughout today and get back to you on what happens. As for if my refresh rate can run on any other cable, I'm unsure as I've been using DP for so long, but I'll give it a try with a HDMI cable. I've also updated my GPU BIOS in the last hour so maybe that will make a difference as well since I ran across one thread that had the same problem as me and this was the solution. I'll also report back and see if this is the cause or not.

 

[DRagor]

I've also updated my GPU BIOS

Considering you also had same problem on 970 I doubt it will help, but of course that shouldn't hurt.

 

[Bigshoots]

Displays were fine running on their own. Both showed no signs of the problem at hand when running solo. Also bought a new PSU and tested that theory as well. Still having the problem. At this point, I'm at a loss of what it could be 🗿.

 

[DRagor]

Have you checked if you can get 120 Hz refresh with HDMI cable (I guess you do have some HDMI cables at home to check that)?
I do have a bit crazy idea which I would like to test. Can you connect both monitors normally, then reduce resolution on both to 1080/120 Hz? I'm expecting this might stop the problem. That's not a solution of course, just a test.

 

[Bigshoots]

Sorry for the long wait between replies. I'm currently testing HDMI as we speak, however, I've only one cord so I'm testing out only one monitor currently. The MSI one for reference. I can get 120Hz when using HDMI at 1080p though on this monitor so if the issue goes away, I can just use the HDMI.

I should mention that I've tried the whole lowering the resolutions thing on both monitors. Issue persisted.

 

[DRagor]

Fine, like I said it was just crazy idea. No great surprise it didn't work. Bad news is I have no more ideas, not even crazy ones. If using HDMI won't help, I really don't know what to do

 

[Bigshoots]

Oh man, then you're gonna love this. The HDMI solution also flopped on both accounts. Happened on my MSI monitor so I switched to my Viewsonic and it happened on there as well.

This is driving me up the wall. I appreciate the help though my guy, thank you. You're the only one that really responded to any of my forum posts.

 

[DRagor]

So the only thing we didn't touch is G-sync/freesync. Turn it off as a last desperate stand?

 

[Bigshoots]

Already did my man. Have tried it with both on and off. Issue persists : (

 

[DRagor]

That's a really stubborn computer bug for sure. Have to call myself defeated by it