Monitor occasionally flashes to black w/ vertical colored lines.

[JustSomeNumbers]

Hello! Here's the problem. My monitor, which I got second-hand from a friend, occasionally flashes to a black screen with vertical colored lines. He did not have this problem himself, I know because I've seen him using it. There is no pattern to how frequently this occurs, though it seems to happen -less- when I have the display at 1920x1080@60hz rather than its native 2560x1440@60hz. It doesn't stay distorted, and it only lasts for a second at most so I can't get a screencap or picture of it. I have a dual-monitor set up and the cable(HDMI to DVI) works fine in my other monitor. I know little to nothing about monitors other than having disassembled one once to replace a couple burst capacitors.

Possible relevant hardware info:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 @4.0Ghz
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB (stock settings)
Problem monitor: Achieva Shimian QH270 w/ HDMI-to-DVI cable
Working monitor: ASUS VS238 w/ DVI-to-DVI cable(this cable does not work at all on the QH270, I only get a black screen)

 

[Solandri]

2560x1600 @ 60 Hz over DVI requires a DVI dual link connection
2560x1600 @ 30 Hz can be done over DVI single link

You're running 2560x1440 @ 60 Hz, which is right in between these, so is probably right on the borderline. Your problem is probably the HDMI-to-DVI cable. It's probably only DVI single link, or is supposed to be DVI dual link but is not very good. It works fine on the other monitor because it's only pushing 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz there. The DVI-to-DVI cable is probably a single link cable, so works on the Asus monitor but not the Achieva.

You should be able to get this to work running the HDMI-to-DVI cable from your GPU's HDMI port to the Asus monitor. Buy a DVI-DL cable and use that to go from the GPU's DVI port to the Achieva montior.

 

[JustSomeNumbers]

It still does it when I've got the Achieva set to 1920x1080@60hz also, but that might just be the cable's not so great. So far replacing the cable with a proper DVI-to-DVI DL still sounds like a good place to start, so I'm gonna go ahead and do that. I'll try to remember to post if it fixed it or not. I know the monitor works, so the only other option is that my R9 380 isn't able to handle it, and that's a much more expensive thing to replace. Thanks for the help!