Heres a brain teaser. bizarre display error.

[battlebattle]

after searching this site since i built my first pc (almost a year ago) for reviews and comparisons and solutions to problems i have finally found a problem so powerful i have to leave my shell and become part of the community.

i will try to explain this problem as clearly as i can.

a few notes first.. here are my specs
psu = Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01
gpu = SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850
cpu = phenom II x4 3.2ghz
motherboard = gigabyte ga-790xta-ud4

i recently had a hd 5770 for about a year without a single problem until 4 days ago when i upgraded.

i use a black toshiba 25 inch as my pc monitor/ps3 tv
a white magnavox tv for tv and my xbox 360
and a household 15 inch monitor that supports vga and dvi

here is the story so far.

i was playing deus ex last night on my new sapphire 6850 for about 3 hours when randomly i decide for whatever reason to change the ingame resolution. after doing this the screen goes black and never comes back, i can still hear the sound but without being able to see i just hard reset and plan to deal with it tomorrow.

tomorrow comes (now 8/29/11) and i turn on my pc and again there is no display just sound (vga to dvi converter with speakers in)
i try my hdmi cable (which i had been using until about 2 weeks ago) hoping if i changed the resolution back it would fix the vga dvi problem, except the video still did not come on.. now im worried.

the short version is i tried the following
=swapped the vga cable (i have 2) and the converters ( i have 2) in every combination possible
=tried 3 different hdmi cables
=opened my pc and made sure everything was connected well

heres where it gets weird..
= i plugged my hdmi cable and my vga into the back of my pc and put the hdmi into my tv i use for tv and it worked, i then put my vga into the 15 inch monitor and it worked. i have 2 displays running at once. so naturally i think the problem is with the tv.
so i take the hdmi cable out of the pc and put it in the ps3 and plug it into the tv i used for pc gaming and the ps3 works but not the monitor display. i plug it back in the pc while here i delete the drivers and install them over.

at this point all the test have shown are that EVERYTHING works like its supposed to. the cables are fine, the pc works on other monitors/tvs and i can still plug other things in the my black tv and get a signal through hdmi. except somehow my pc cant display to its original tv anymore.

=i move my pc to the 60 inch tv in the living room and try both hdmi and vga cables and it works.. so at this point i think something must be wrong with the tv.

exhausted after hours of working on this i decide to just use the 15 inch until i can find a solution. i close up the pc and turn it on, now there is no signal to my 15 inch.
i plug the hdmi back into the second tv, and now there is no signal to either tv now.

i turn it off and back on and now i have hdmi signal in the second tv and no vga signal to the 15 inch monitor like i had all day while doing test.... so i go to catalyst control and try changing the refresh rates and display resolution of the 15 in monitor because my computer recognizes its there but it says "no signal". i assume maybe i set it to a resolution or hertz that the monitor couldnt handle but no signal still.

i then turn the pc off and put the graphic card in the other pci express slot, go to the bios and (on a suggestion from an old post somewhere else) set my computer to recognize the pci E slot i put the card in as the primary video display source.

still nothing.

now only hdmi works on the second tv in my room. the original tv using all cable variations says "no signal" as well as the 15 inch says also says "no signal"

the card was working fine for 3 or 4 days.. it wasnt until last night it randomly started this series of problems.

my last test before i quit is to try the pc i just built for my dad 4 days ago (that i ordered all the parts for when i was buying my 6850) with the cables to my tv to see if it is actually the tv that is broken.this pc now has my hd 5770 that worked well for me for over a year. and it also didnt work with the tv or the 15 inch display


somebody tell me they have an idea what the hell is going on.

 

[Wolfshadw]

It definitely sounds like your resolutions are borked. One thing I never saw you say you tried is booting into safe mode.

This is what I would try with the PC connected only to the 15" monitor via VGA. If it boots into safe mode (with video obviously), then set the resolution to the 15" monitor to it's native resolution and reboot the system; allowing it to boot normally. If this works, set up a hot-key toggle in Catalyst Control Center to swap your displays (not sure if you can do this with only one monitor connected). Shut down your system and then reconnect the black TV via HDMI.

I'm guessing that CCC is automatically switching your primary display to the HDMI connected device. At this point, I would suspect you have no display on your black HDTV, but you should still see something on the 15" monitor. Use the hot-key toggle you set up to swap the displays and you should now have a desktop on the 15" monitor.

Access CCC and try the various resolutions for the black HDTV until you get a signal.

-Wolf sends

 

[battlebattle]

first off thank you wolf for the reply, i woke up excited to see somebody actually responded to me.

i wake up ready and set to spend a whole day working on this. my first step is to plug it in to the second tv and change the settings like you suggested, but before i put them into my first tv and they both worked again.
i didnt do anything, i assume the technical fairies repaired it while i slept.

i changed out my surge protector because ive had problems with this wall outlet before so maybe that did it.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Ahh yes! Another victim of the Sleep-Walking System Repair Syndrome. 😴

Glad it's working now!

-Wolf sends