Windows goes black on 4k monitor

[tbartman67]

I just got a new Dell P2715Q 4k monitor. I'm using it with a Windows 7 32 bit, i5-4570, with integrated graphics (Intel HD 4600) which reportedly (and often for me) handles 4k at 60 hz. I'm having a bit of an odd problem:

When I'm in Windows just looking at my dektop, everything is great - tiny and sharp! But when I open a window for many programs (Outlook, Chrome, whatever) I'll see the image for a split second then the screen goes black. It only has to be one window that's open - but this doesn't happen if the open window is anything in control panel (e.g., where I'm playing with my graphics settings). If I minimize all windows (by hitting Windows-M) then the image comes back. I've tried setting the refresh to 59 or 60 hz (apparently these actually don't make a difference, they're both 59.94 hz). I've tried changing color depth between 16 bit and 32 bit. I changed the desktop background to a solid color and this doesn't help.

The only thing that makes it go away for sure is to switch to a lower resolution (I'm at 2560, 60 hz, 32 bit right now). Then I can do anything I want.

I know a little and I'm tempted to think that this is a memory issue? But why would that matter if the background and any open windows are using the same amount of space anyway?

If folks want, I could make a youtube video to show you what I mean!

 

[Mr Kagouris]

What type of cable are you using for the monitor?

 

[tbartman67]

The display port -> mini DP cable that came with the monitor

 

[tbartman67]

I have more info: I can set the graphics to the highest possible supported (4k, 60 hz, 32 bit) and as I said, I can see things perfectly often! I opened a massive spreadsheet in excel no problem. But even some programs/windows work sometimes and sometimes not! I can't get Chrome to work at all. With Internet Explorer, I was able to get to a web page in a window (not full screen) and when I dragged the slider up and down on the web page my screen would go black or come back. In Adobe Acrobat, it worked at first, but when I tried to open the dialog to open a file it went black, but when I was able to open a document (by randomly clicking in the dark) the image came back.

 

[Hlsgsz]

I just got a new Dell P2715Q 4k monitor. I'm using it with a Windows 7 32 bit, i5-4570, with integrated graphics (Intel HD 4600) which reportedly (and often for me) handles 4k at 60 hz. I'm having a bit of an odd problem:

When I'm in Windows just looking at my dektop, everything is great - tiny and sharp! But when I open a window for many programs (Outlook, Chrome, whatever) I'll see the image for a split second then the screen goes black. It only has to be one window that's open - but this doesn't happen if the open window is anything in control panel (e.g., where I'm playing with my graphics settings). If I minimize all windows (by hitting Windows-M) then the image comes back. I've tried setting the refresh to 59 or 60 hz (apparently these actually don't make a difference, they're both 59.94 hz). I've tried changing color depth between 16 bit and 32 bit. I changed the desktop background to a solid color and this doesn't help.

The only thing that makes it go away for sure is to switch to a lower resolution (I'm at 2560, 60 hz, 32 bit right now). Then I can do anything I want.

I know a little and I'm tempted to think that this is a memory issue? But why would that matter if the background and any open windows are using the same amount of space anyway?

If folks want, I could make a youtube video to show you what I mean!

Memoryhas noth to do with this. If it had, changing the resolution would be inconsequential.
I'm thinking driver issues. Are you on the latest drivers?
Other than that.. it's 2016, man! And you own a 4k display. Don't you think it's time for Win 10? I bet taht if you upgrade, you wil not have this assue anymore.

EDIT: how much memory have you set aside in the bios for graphics, seeing as you're on a 32bit 4gb limited system?

 

[CBender]

My thought is that something goes horribly with the windows 7 scaler and the Intel Hd Driver (which i assume is up to date). I think that it might be to move on to W10 or 8.1. I prefer the later, but for 4k support W10 is a better bet.

Does this happen in other resolutions as well? It could be a monitor malfunction. Try using it at 1920 if you haven't by now.

 

[Hlsgsz]

My thought is that something goes horribly with the windows 7 scaler and the Intel Hd Driver (which i assume is up to date). I think that it might be to move on to W10 or 8.1. I prefer the later, but for 4k support W10 is a better bet.

Does this happen in other resolutions as well? It could be a monitor malfunction. Try using it at 1920 if you haven't by now.

Yup. I'm thinking if we dig deep enough we'll find some folks on the forum asking why their brand new 4k display ain't working on windows xp ))

 

[GearUp]

The animations in browsers increase graphics demand. Windows still require more and different calculations from the CPU. Although the monitor has a separate power supply, the PSU is likely too old. Even if that is the problem, a graphics card would be advisable which would also benefit from a newer PSU.

 

[tbartman67]

Unfortunately, I'm on a work computer and we're stuck in the dark ages with Win 7. They wouldn't even buy me this monitor (I did it with my own personal funds because I stare at it 12 hours a day and it was worth it to me). I'm on all the latest drivers, but let me see if I can play with the BIOS.

 

[tbartman67]

Thanks for all your help so far - feel free to keep it coming!

I guess my fallback will be to run 2560 x 1440 until work either updates the OS or hardware across the organization. I figured at least with this monitor (which is truly beautiful when I can see an image!) I'll be a little protected from being outdated soon.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

I don't see the problem seeing as how you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free from Win7.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Unfortunately, I'm on a work computer and we're stuck in the dark ages with Win 7. They wouldn't even buy me this monitor (I did it with my own personal funds because I stare at it 12 hours a day and it was worth it to me). I'm on all the latest drivers, but let me see if I can play with the BIOS.

Ah, that sucks. You could advise them that if not enterprise version its a free upgrade.

Assign atleast 512MB of memory to graphics if you can acces the bios.

 

[mjslakeridge]

In most office environments, the employees don't get to decide which OS they get to run on their work computers. He could ask his IT folks if he could upgrade, but they probably want to upgrade all employees at the same time.

 

[tbartman67]

Hey, thanks all for your suggestions. Even though Windows said my drivers were up to date, I was able to find out through an Intel utility that they weren't. Once I updated them all is working well now!

 

[tbartman67]

Oh, so yes, a Windows 7 machine with on-board graphics can do 4k at 60 hz and full color depth, although I don't expect it would handle any gaming! For my spreadsheets, it's glorious - over 5000 cells on the screen at once and very legible

 

[mjslakeridge]

Hey, thanks all for your suggestions. Even though Windows said my drivers were up to date, I was able to find out through an Intel utility that they weren't. Once I updated them all is working well now!

Good call on using something other than Windows to determine whether your drivers were up to date. I recently had the same issue with a GPU I took out of an old computer and installed in my current one.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Hey, thanks all for your suggestions. Even though Windows said my drivers were up to date, I was able to find out through an Intel utility that they weren't. Once I updated them all is working well now!

Oh, so yes, a Windows 7 machine with on-board graphics can do 4k at 60 hz and full color depth, although I don't expect it would handle any gaming! For my spreadsheets, it's glorious - over 5000 cells on the screen at once and very legible

Oh, man, if people ask you if your drivers are up to date, trust me, they never ever mean "asking" Windows You need to check yourself. Keep that in mind.
cheers for getting it to work!

 

[king3pj]

In most office environments, the employees don't get to decide which OS they get to run on their work computers. He could ask his IT folks if he could upgrade, but they probably want to upgrade all employees at the same time.

Exactly. We are still on Windows 7 Professional at our office and even when we bought new computers this year we specifically made sure that they would come with Windows 7 Professional installed. Even with free upgrades to Windows 10 we will stay with Windows 7 until it stops getting security updates or the accounting software we use starts requiring a new OS.

We hung on to XP until we were forced to change too. The reasoning is simple. Business hate change. The software and hardware we depend on works with Windows 7. While, it would probably work fine with Windows 10 too there is risk that it won't. There is risk that we will have downtime while people try to figure out how to get everything working properly again.

Our employees also know how to use Windows 7 because they have been doing it every day for years. The changes from 7 to 10 may be minor but there are still differences in the way things work. Accountants may work at a computer all day but they are certainly not computer experts. In the business world, change for the sake of change is bad.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Exactly. We are still on Windows 7 Professional at our office and even when we bought new computers this year we specifically made sure that they would come with Windows 7 Professional installed. Even with free upgrades to Windows 10 we will stay with Windows 7 until it stops getting security updates or the accounting software we use starts requiring a new OS.

We hung on to XP until we were forced to change too. The reasoning is simple. Business hate change. The software and hardware we depend on works with Windows 7. While, it would probably work fine with Windows 10 too there is risk that it won't. There is risk that we will have downtime while people try to figure out how to get everything working properly again.

Our employees also know how to use Windows 7 because they have been doing it every day for years. The changes from 7 to 10 may be minor but there are still differences in the way things work. Accountants may work at a computer all day but they are certainly not computer experts. In the business world, change for the sake of change is bad.

But wouldn't upgrading make more sense from a business perspective? Unless you get special deals from Microsoft for bulk ordering licenses or something, there'd be a big cost associated with upgrading later relative to the upgrade being free if you do it now.

 

[king3pj]

Exactly. We are still on Windows 7 Professional at our office and even when we bought new computers this year we specifically made sure that they would come with Windows 7 Professional installed. Even with free upgrades to Windows 10 we will stay with Windows 7 until it stops getting security updates or the accounting software we use starts requiring a new OS.

We hung on to XP until we were forced to change too. The reasoning is simple. Business hate change. The software and hardware we depend on works with Windows 7. While, it would probably work fine with Windows 10 too there is risk that it won't. There is risk that we will have downtime while people try to figure out how to get everything working properly again.

Our employees also know how to use Windows 7 because they have been doing it every day for years. The changes from 7 to 10 may be minor but there are still differences in the way things work. Accountants may work at a computer all day but they are certainly not computer experts. In the business world, change for the sake of change is bad.

But wouldn't upgrading make more sense from a business perspective? Unless you get special deals from Microsoft for bulk ordering licenses or something, there'd be a big cost associated with upgrading later relative to the upgrade being free if you do it now.

We would be out the cost of paying for Windows instead of getting it for free. That would definitely cost us money. Anything that hurts our productivity would cost us a lot more than the price of Windows licenses though.

We bill our customers somewhere between $200-$250 per hour, depending on the work. If something goes wrong and we have to wait for IT to get it working again even a single hour of lost work would cost us more than the price of Windows. We aren't a big enough company to have our own IT department on staff so it might take an hour just for the IT guy to show up.

That isn't taking into account the lost productivity when employees don't know how to do something in Windows 10 that they did in Windows 7. You wouldn't believe how computer illiterate some people who spend their entire work week at a computer can be.

 

[mjslakeridge]

We stayed on XP (on some computers) due to the fact our accounting software wouldn't work on 7 or 8 (at the time). We would have had to purchase a costly upgrade to the accounting software (several thousand $), to move on from XP. Eventually the company got bought out by the minority owner, so we didn't have to deal with it anymore.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Exactly. We are still on Windows 7 Professional at our office and even when we bought new computers this year we specifically made sure that they would come with Windows 7 Professional installed. Even with free upgrades to Windows 10 we will stay with Windows 7 until it stops getting security updates or the accounting software we use starts requiring a new OS.

We hung on to XP until we were forced to change too. The reasoning is simple. Business hate change. The software and hardware we depend on works with Windows 7. While, it would probably work fine with Windows 10 too there is risk that it won't. There is risk that we will have downtime while people try to figure out how to get everything working properly again.

Our employees also know how to use Windows 7 because they have been doing it every day for years. The changes from 7 to 10 may be minor but there are still differences in the way things work. Accountants may work at a computer all day but they are certainly not computer experts. In the business world, change for the sake of change is bad.

But wouldn't upgrading make more sense from a business perspective? Unless you get special deals from Microsoft for bulk ordering licenses or something, there'd be a big cost associated with upgrading later relative to the upgrade being free if you do it now.

I don't hink the free upgrade offer extends to businesses and volume licensing. Or does it?

 

[Mr Kagouris]

I don't hink the free upgrade offer extends to businesses and volume licensing. Or does it?

It doesn't extend to Windows Enterprise, but I doubt they have Enterprise for accounting.