Viewsonic VP201b Problem (I think)

mrussell2k6

Distinguished
Dec 12, 2005
3
0
18,510
Hi All,

I have an extremely frustrating problem which is proving difficult to fix. I would appreciate any insight offered into this.

Firstly, system specs:

P4 3.4Ghz
Abit AW8-Max
XFX GeForce 7800GTX
Enermax 485W PSU
2 x Viewsonic VP201b TFTs

When powering up, or for that matter rebooting the system, more often that not the monitors will not display anything on the screen. This applies to the BIOS screen and subsequent windows loading screens. Sometimes, one monitor will display something and the other will not - and it can be either monitor.

Both monitors are connected to the vid card by the default DVI connectors. However, using D-SUB with DVI/D-SUB adaptors I get exactly the same problem.

I have had one monitor replaced by Viewsonic. Same problem persists.

I have just today rebuilt the system, previously it was based around a socket 939 AMD64 3500 with a Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard. Exactly the same problem (however there was a greater ratio of success:failure with this mobo, in terms of the monitors displaying something on the screen).

Viewsonic have no ideas on this. I have had the graphics card (and the Asus mobo) tested twice by the vendor.
When using a Dell 2001FP monitor, this problem never seems to develop.

When using the two viewsonic monitors on a AGP graphics card with one DVI and one on D-SUB, the problem would still crop up from time to time (however, interestingly enough this could sometimes be fixed by disabling then enabling a second monitor in the graphics card utility - for both AGP graphics cards tried (Geforce 800 GT and ATI X800XL).

There is no pattern or regularity in when this issue occurs. It appears to be completely random.

Does anyone have suggestions?
 
I have the same problem. It must be a characteristic of that model (vp201b).

One of mine just died... I didn't know they are still worth $500ish.
I got them for $1000 a piece like 4 years ago...