[SOLVED] Extreme flashing from monitors under high GPU load (Quadro K1200) ?

[idrsinc]

I have a Quadro K1200. Here is a video of the issue that I have.

This has been intermittent. However, I was able to replicate the problem consistently when I had to render some videos out of Camtasia. Occasionally some webpages, moving to full screen on some windows, or doing something else intensive triggers it but it is still intermittent (except when rendering)

I have updated drivers, used DDU and removed my old driver and reinstalled with an old driver for compatibility. All with no success.

I have a four monitor setup as you can see from the video. Per a suggestion from my wife I started unplugging monitors. I started experiencing the issue on the other three. However, when I unplugged the second monitor (now only 2 monitors plugged in) the flickering stopped. I ran the Camtasia exporter again and no flickering on the top two monitors. I had the Nvidia GPU Utilization window open and I noticed that with the export I was now only reaching about 50% utilization not 100%. So I opened Planet Coaster as this is the first program where I first noticed this issue. The GPU Utilization went to 100% but still no flickering.

I replugged the two bottom monitors back in. Ran the Camtasia export. Flickering again. Then I unplugged the top two to see if the bottom monitors were the problem. No flickering on Camtasia export (the GPU Utilization was in the 50's). So I ran Planet Coaster. 100% GPU Utilization but no flickering. The bottom monitors are BenQ 24" GW2450. The top two monitors are Samsung 22" SyncMaster 2253LW.

I'm trying to think logically about this. If there is no flicker on either pair of the monitors even while the GPU Utilization is high, could it be that four monitors together is too much for the video card? Could it be that two types of monitors is causing the problem? I also hooked up one of the BenQs and one of the Samsungs and there was no flickering with any of the programs. So I don't know that this is the cause.

Finally, as I mentioned, with 2 monitors and Planet Coaster running (100% GPU Utilization), no flickering. Plugged in a third monitor (BenQ) and the flickering started. Unplugged that monitor and plugged in another (Samsung - still only 3 plugged in). Flickering. I thought that this issue could be CPU related but during planet coaster the CPU levels stay relatively modest so I'm thinking that it is 100% related to GPU load. Does that mean my video card cannot handle 3 or 4 monitors with an intensive load? Is there a setting that can be changed? 90% of the time there is no problem but obviously it is annoying as I'm working, especially because it happens some times when I'm presenting over Zoom. Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you.

 

[Bazzy 505]

The issue you are having is caused by the DVI/D-Sub conversion adapters you are using to connect those screens to your Quadro.
It is common issue when you try hooking more than two monitors in this fashion.

 

[idrsinc]

So would you recommend different conversion adapters or to truly solve the puzzle, get monitors that do not require DVI adapters and can go mini display port to HDMI (I don't think there are many monitors that have display port inputs...maybe I'm wrong).

 

[Bazzy 505]

So would you recommend different conversion adapters or to truly solve the puzzle, get monitors that do not require DVI adapters and can go mini display port to HDMI (I don't think there are many monitors that have display port inputs...maybe I'm wrong).

To be honest, DVI-D use peaked around 2013. Most modern monitors released in the last 5 years don't even support DVI-D standard anymore. It was replaced by HDMI. In PC space even HDMI is roughly in the same place DVI-D was around 2016. While still supported, it has been largely superseeded by DisplayPort. As a result most current monitors mainly support DisplayPort, with typically only one HDMI port for Legancy compatibility. ( Of course in living room arena, the situation is different, HDMI is very much alive and well )

Now back to the problem at hand, K1200 is natively display port, and came shipped with 4 DVI-D dongles and 4 MiniDisplayPort-Display port dongles. DP is generally least problematic with multiple monitors.

Use the DisplayPort dongles that came with the card, and if your really really have to use HDMI, put the DP-HDMI conversion on the top of factory DP dongle.
Don't use the DVI ones and certainly don't use DVI to HDMI with that kind of setup.