Question Help identifying monitor flickering lines issue

[Reialgo]

Hi all, I have a 1440p, 144hz viewsonic monitor that's served me well for a few years now. A couple of days ago during normal video gaming it started to show flickering vertical lines rapidly, appearing in blocks up and down the screen, and it started to go blank for a few seconds (I could still hear audio through my separate speakers) a few times. Immediately I found that reducing the refresh rate down from 144hz to 60hz though obviously not ideal.

I turned off the computer, unplugged everything and cleaned it out, then re-seated both the GPU and RAM components and re-booted, still flickering. Next I ran the windows memory diagnostic to double check the RAM and it found no issue. I rebooted windows into safe mode and performed a clean installation of the latest nvidia drivers and that didn't solve it either. I also ran heaven's benchmark and my graphics card performed as expected, sans the flickering, vram correctly detected, no artifacts, high frame rates good temp. I ordered a new displayport cable, swapped it in and that hasn't solved the issue either, and I do not have another 144hz device to connect to unfortunately.

One oddity occurred the day after the flickering started, during gameplay at 60hz, with chrome running the the background, the monitor started to black out for a few seconds as before. After a few times, windows crashed, citing "Memory management" which is what prompted me to double check the ram with memory diagnostic tool, I then performed the clean GPU driver install afterwards. I have not seen any more blackouts at 60hz after the clean driver install, unsure if related to the issue since nothing so far has solved the monitor flickering at higher refresh rates

So my question is, does it sound like either my monitor, or my GPU is suddenly on the fritz? I'm really hoping it's not the card as that would be much harder to replace of course, any help would be appreciated.

Here is my setup;
Windows 10 Home
MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz
Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz
GeForce RTX 2070 Super
650W EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G1+, Full Modular, 80PLUS Gold

 

[Ralston18]

Is it possible to try your monitor on another known working computer?

Or try borrowing another known working monitor on your computer? Even if only 60 hz. Just as a matter of elimination.

Determine if the flickering problem follows the monitor or stays with your computer..

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, and informational events that precede or correspond with the flickers and other issues.

Increasing numbers of errors and varying errors may be a sign of a faltering PSU.

How old is that EVGA PSU? History of heavy gaming use?

= = = =

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris

Verify by sight and feel that all cards, connectors, RAM, and jumpers are fully and firmly seated.

Inspect for signs of damage: bare conductor showing, melted insulation, cracks anywhere, pinched or kinked wires, browned or blackened areas, swollen components.

 

[Reialgo]

Thanks there is actually another computer in the house so I might be able to hook the monitor up to it and least set the desktop refresh rate to 144hz which ought to narrow down the trouble.

I took a look in Reliability History and there doesn't seem to be too many errors(not shutting down windows properly I'm a bit guilty of) but I did noticed several LiveKernalEvent Hardware errors that occurred a few times earlier in the month and I think they are related to a black out I have been having where the screen briefly turns green, then blacks out for about a second before coming back.

I had a look around the components when I re-seated things, and gave em a dusting down but it wouldn't hurt to give it another look over

The PSU is about 3 years old now and yes it does get a lot of heavy gaming use out of it

 

[Reialgo]

So as a small update, I managed to hook up the monitor to another computer and lo and behold, the flickering was happening on the other computer as well. Gotta be the monitor then!

Small sigh of relief in a way, just a bit easier to replace a monitor than potentially a graphics card sheesh