HDMI intermittent blanks on monitor

[PKM]

My Gigabyte gtx-570 graphics card is connected via HDMI cable to a AOC LED external monitor. At fairly regular intervals about 10 minutes apart, the screen goes completely blank/black (but monitor seems to detect signal) for about 5 seconds and then everything is back to normal. My system also has a history of tiny electrical leaks to the cabinet, which went away on their own and were never root caused. I believe that if there was still any issue in grounding or fault in the PSU leading to incorrect power supply to the motherboard the system would never come up at all - which it is doing perfectly well at present. I'm also using an APC UPS for backup.

DVI-I and DVI-D (dual link) connections to monitor always work fine. After a week weeks of me noticing this problem, my DVI-I and HDMI port on the graphics card stopped working or giving greenish-yellow output and I sent the card for replacement. Even the replacement card is showing the same issue on HDMI (intermittent blanking). I believe that these problems are unrelated (HDMI issue could be due to some handshaking fault or a known issue in the driver or VBIOS).

My fear is that this could be (seems unlikely) a pre-cursor to the complete port failure as described above. This might seem to indicate that there is something wrong in a hardware component other than the graphics card - but as I said in that case system wouldnt really boot up at all. So basically i'm trying to unravel these issues to isolate the root cause.

If the issue is in software/drivers then it's totally tolerable (I have latest Nvidia drivers).

Gigabyte gtx-570, ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 mobo, Intel i7 2600, Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 600W PSU, AOC LED 21.5 inch monitor, APC 600VA Back-UPS

 

[photonboy]

Have you tried a different MONITOR or HDTV?

It does seem like a hardware issue but if it's not the graphics card I suspect the screen.

Other troubleshooting:
1) Try all compatible PCIe slots for the graphics card

2) Use WUBI to install Ubuntu, then boot to that and update the video drivers and test with this (after trying different monitor). If issue persists problem is HARDWARE. If issue is gone, problem is SOFTWARE which may require reinstall of Windows.

Ubuntu can be easily removed like any other program. *Create a SYSTEM RESTORE point before installing it. It's very reliable but just to be safe (any time you mess with boot loader). If you ever get boot issues with something like this, boot to your Windows install disc then follow the repair option to System Restore..

 

[PKM]

Thanks for your reply.

1) The monitor and output (1080p) is perfectly fine when it's connected to the DVI-i or D port on the graphics card and there is no indication that anything is wrong in the monitor. Everything is about 1 year old and there isnt really any scope for contact problems or degradation. The HDMi cable is working when connected to same monitor to my Raspberry Pi, although there I havent tested long enough to try and reproduce this blanking out issue. Will however try the cable for longer on another machine and report back.

2) I have Linux Mint in dual boot where I am presently trying to reproduce this issue (will update either way). For Linux there are only generic drivers from Nvidia which I've downloaded now for the GeForce 500 series and not anything specific for this gtx-570 card like for Windows. Is there any particular reason you recommended WUBI Ubuntu ?. Afaik it's similar to a Virtual Machine, but even there I can't imagine it would use the Windows driver to achieve display (like ndiswrapper might) - thoughts welcome.

Googling this issue has shown a fair amount of hits for this HDMi issue with a variety of OEMs graphics cards and different monitor brands. While there is no consensus on the root cause - there are some posts (unconclusive though) on this being an issue in the driver, VBIOS or handshaking in HDMI, whereas other posts say the card itself is faulty. I'm trying to determine if this is a generally known issue.

The reason I'm polling the internet and fora (superuser, tomshardware, anandtech, and Gigabyte customer support online ) is to get some clarity on whether this is strictly a software/firmware issue OR a hardware fault. As I've said if this is a software fault then It doesnt even matter to me where exactly the problem lies since my DVI connections are working perfectly well.

If it's a hardware problem - then this would set some alarm bells ringing. The original and replacement cards (under Gigabyte warranty) both showed this symptom and its statistically unlikely that 2 new cards could have the same manufacturing fault. And if it is in hardware then in which component could the fault exist in?

I've had the grounding/earthing checked by an electrician who claimed that it was fine. what I'd like to know is - IF any electrical issue still existed either in the grounding or in the PSU which resulted in incorrect power supply to the motherboard - the system wouldnt boot up at all.
The tiny electrical leaks i mentioned earlier were also never root-caused and were before i had the wall socket changed which I believed to be unrelated. I need to isolate the root-cause and conclusively determine if the HDMI issue could be related to these or to any other hardware problems. As of now I cant imagine any source of hardware fault or see any symptoms - as I said in that case motherboard and system wouldnt boot/come up at all in the first place. I am about to get some help and get the PSU investigated with a multi-meter to verify input voltages.

Conclusion: I am trying to classify this problem as a known issue if anyone has had similar experience in which case I neednt worry that some hardware failure is again impending. Any held/pointers would be appreciated

Have you tried a different MONITOR or HDTV?
It does seem like a hardware issue but if it's not the graphics card I suspect the screen.

Other troubleshooting:
1) Try all compatible PCIe slots for the graphics card

2) Use WUBI to install Ubuntu, then boot to that and update the video drivers and test with this (after trying different monitor). If issue persists problem is HARDWARE. If issue is gone, problem is SOFTWARE which may require reinstall of Windows.

Ubuntu can be easily removed like any other program. *Create a SYSTEM RESTORE point before installing it. It's very reliable but just to be safe (any time you mess with boot loader). If you ever get boot issues with something like this, boot to your Windows install disc then follow the repair option to System Restore..