Question Is my PSU dying? 2nd monitor randomly disconnects?

[Barrichelly]

I recently made a trade with my friend and acquired his GTX 980. I also had a 980, so the idea was to SLI them.

Since I've had the SLI configuration, it worked perfectly fine... for a few days. One time when waking up the PC from sleep the 2nd monitor wouldn't connect and turn on as you would expect it to. It just remained disconnected. There doesn't seem to be a solid fix to this, but if it does fix, it's on one of my 20 attempts of reinstalling the drivers and power-cycling. When it does power back on it lasts until it goes to sleep and then won't boot up when the PC is woken from sleep.

All potential cable/GPU port issues have been ruled out. Normally I have an HDMI to DVI cable for the second monitor but I just bought a DisplayPort to DVI cable and the problem still occurs.

To me, I would chalk this up to my 4 year old PSU 750W, but would like a 2nd opinion.

Some notes:

• When I manage to get both screens working, they continue working even when the system is under high load (games)
• I still face issues now when I disconnect one of the GPUs
• The main monitor has never had a problem
• Wattage calculator sites had my recommended wattage at just under 650W, could an old dusty 750W PSU be struggling to output enough power? Would cleaning help?
• One instance just now I was browsing Steam on my computer and my screens go black and my monitor goes out. The only instance when it disconnected outside of going to sleep.
• Temperatures don't exceed 65C for main GPU when under load, under 60C for the other

Thanks in advance.

 

[jonnyguru]

That's not a PSU problem. That's not how PSU's work.

This is either a graphics card problem or a motherboard problem.

 

[Barrichelly]

That's not a PSU problem. That's not how PSU's work.

This is either a graphics card problem or a motherboard problem.

That's the last thing I wanted to hear. Can't be a card issue since I've tried both cards individually and got the same problem.

My thought was that the GPU wasn't receiving power and so as a failsafe it output power to only the main monitor. I'm sure that conclusion sounds very naive as I am very uneducated on how parts in a computer work especially under non-ideal conditions.

As I was typing this my main monitor went out (queue Windows disconnect noise) and then came back on.

I realize this is still the PSU board, but could too much bending in the motherboard have caused something like this? I fear I may have pushed too hard when putting in the 2nd GPU.

Thanks for the reply.