[SOLVED] No Display Image After Storm =(

MarsColonist

Commendable
Jan 9, 2021
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Recently had a thunderstorm that caused a power outage. The PC was not plugged into a surge protector at the time. :(

Now when I power it on, I am getting a message from the monitor saying: "DisplayPort NO SIGNAL" , after which the screen goes dark.

The PC was working fine up until the storm.

The monitor DisplayPort cable (which was in use prior to the storm) was connecting the RTX 3070 to the monitor.

Specs:
OS: Windows 10 Home
GPU: EVGA RTX 3070
PSU: Corsair RMx RM850x 850 watt gold certified power supply

My initial reaction was... "well obviously I had a storm surge and it must have damaged the graphics card since it says there's no signal from the DisplayPort." But the desktop PC itself appears to be starting up, seemingly suggesting the power supply is working. Is it possible the GPU could be damaged but the PSU is somehow undamaged? Seems doubtful to me because whatever power flows to the graphics card would flow through the PSU first, right?

Regardless, the preponderance of evidence makes me think it's the graphics card that's the problem... but strangely, the fancy colored lighting on the GPU is also lighting up, suggesting that the PSU must be delivering power to the graphics card...

I plugged my iPhone into the USB port and the phone gave me the usual pop-up asking me if I wanted to allow the desktop PC that was now connected to it access to its photos. Would it give me that prompt if the PC was not working?

Wondering what my next steps are here.
 
Solution
I would start with the PSU first, as it is designed to fail first before damaging components. Do you have the ability to swap the GPU or PSU from another system to troubleshoot? If you do, you can swap the GPU in the other system and see if it boots. If it boots, you can point to the GPU being bad. If nothing happens but the GPU works in the other system, you know it is the PSU most likely.

You can also try clearing the CMOS and see if that helps any (easy to try without swapping parts or buying a new PSU), as something to try.

tecmo34

Administrator
Moderator
I would start with the PSU first, as it is designed to fail first before damaging components. Do you have the ability to swap the GPU or PSU from another system to troubleshoot? If you do, you can swap the GPU in the other system and see if it boots. If it boots, you can point to the GPU being bad. If nothing happens but the GPU works in the other system, you know it is the PSU most likely.

You can also try clearing the CMOS and see if that helps any (easy to try without swapping parts or buying a new PSU), as something to try.
 
Solution

MarsColonist

Commendable
Jan 9, 2021
105
9
1,585
I have an update... and it seems to answer some of the mystery, but it raises some new questions as well.

For some reason when I switched the plugs for the display ports that the Valve Index was plugged into with the plug that the monitor was plugged into, I finally got an image of my PC desktop. However, the image was only 800x600 resolution, and when I go into the display properties where you can change resolution, I see that the resolution option has been grayed out... so I can't change it.

Could this be a driver problem? Why would the image come back when I switched the cables around that the Valve Index and the monitor were going into? And why would it come back all stretched out like this at such a low resolution? My drivers were up to date as of like 1-2 weeks ago and I was happily gaming on them up until the storm problem.

Maybe the storm damaged one of the display ports and not the other? But why would switching the monitor from one display port to another cause a resolution drop? Makes no sense to me.

EDIT: The monitor is a 35" 3440x1440 ultrawide. So it's weird that the resolution sets to 800x600 and won't let me change it. It was working fine earlier before the storm.

EDIT 2: I updated the drivers again, and for some odd reason it fixed the resolution problem. But my GPU drivers were, as mentioned, up to date as of a few weeks ago... and I had been gaming on them happily right up to the storm. I don't really understand why a storm surge would affect GPU drivers, but things seem to be working now with the new drivers...
 
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