Question Main of 2 monitors works sporadically, sometimes starts working after changing project (windows + p)

nikolaj.krasek

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May 19, 2018
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AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia geforce rtx2060, asrock 450m hdv r4.0

Hello. I've been dealing with a problem and I couldn't find any solution on other threads. I have 2 monitors, one 1440p, 144hz connected with display port and one 1080p, 60hz with hdmi. They worked together fine for a year and one day my main monitor started being blank when I start up my computer. After I turn it off and on again and change the ''project'' settings with win+p a couple times it sometimes starts working normally, but I couldn't find reasons as to why it started working and it is never in a pattern. Sometimes it works after changing to ''pc screen only'', sometimes ''duplicate'' or ''extend'', it is completely random as far as I can tell. But sometimes the second display ( which works normally) goes blank but a quick reset of the display makes it work again. If I let just my main screen plugged in it doesn't work most of the time. It is a software problem as the display and cable work fine everywhere else. It also works completely fine when my pc starts in safe mode as far as I can tell. I can also sometimes see the bios startup on my main screen before going blank meaning the signal is going through. I've tried most of the things listed on the web, including:
-rolling back display adapter drivers and uninstalling them completely (this came with multiple problems as I found out my cpu does not have integrated graphics and now everything was black)
- disabling all startup programs and services(except for windows services) through msconfig
-resetting this pc with keep my files
-other obvious things(restarting, checking for hardware problems...)

I had some luck with turning off services but windows somehow turned off all the services that control the internet connection and other important things so my display was working but nothing else and when I activated the windows services again the problem came back.

I am desperate, I cannot find the problem, if all else fails I will buy a hard drive to copy personal stuff and wipe the whole pc but I hope you fine people can help me.
 
Are you on the latest NVIDIA driver? One of the things running in Safe Mode does is use a generic display driver. I'd suggest as a troubleshooting step to uninstall the old display driver using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller, available online, get directly from developer website) while in Safe Mode. Then install the latest version of the display driver directly from NVIDIA. Have the new driver downloaded and sitting on your desktop to make things simpler.

*When you uninstall drivers, you would typically use the uninstall option in the Apps page in Settings. DDU will bypass this, on reboot Windows SHOULD enable the aforementioned generic driver to allow an output untill the proper drivers are installed.
 

nikolaj.krasek

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May 19, 2018
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4,510
Ok, I'll try when i'm sure i can get the screen back because the last time i deleted drivers i spent way too much time getting them back.
As I was writing this I accidentally opened a game (star wars: empire at war) and my main screen started showing working when it started running if that gives any ideas to anyone.