Question Wonky display connection but ONLY upon monitor powering up (jiggling power cable fixes?)

[markzer0]

This has me stumped: I have a relatively new Samsung 4K monitor. When I first power it on each morning, it always boots to an all-white pixelated screen...like completely whited-out. The first time this happened, I thought 'oh no, dead monitor', but if I reach behind and jiggle the monitor's power cable where it connects to the monitor, the screen will flicker for a second, and then come to life (white-out goes away > Windows login screen appears, and I can use it normally all day.)

The jiggling / flickering sounds like just a wonky power cable connection, but what doesn't make sense to me is that I have to do this EVERY morning, and once I successfully get the monitor going, it works completely normally all day, no flickering at all. And then the cycle repeats itself the next morning (white screen > jiggle cable > works properly.) This makes no sense to me: if it were a loose connection, I'd expect constant flickering / jiggle-fix throughout the day. And I wouldn't have to do the jiggle fix once EVERY morning. And yet that's what happens: (1) single jiggle fix in the morning > (2) works all day. So what could possibly be going on here?

 

[hedwar2011]

1) Does the monitor take a standard 3-prong power cable like most others do? If so, have you tried another one to rule out the cable being the source?
2) How is the monitor connected to your GPU? HDMI? DisplayPort?

The connectors internally could be loose or not making a good connection. I would think it likely something other than the power connection though since you are getting the white-pixelated screen.

 

[markzer0]

1) Does the monitor take a standard 3-prong power cable like most others do? If so, have you tried another one to rule out the cable being the source?

No, it's some annoying proprietary power cable with a circular tip.

2) How is the monitor connected to your GPU? HDMI? DisplayPort?

The connectors internally could be loose or not making a good connection. I would think it likely something other than the power connection though since you are getting the white-pixelated screen.

HDMI cable.

Yes, the mystery here is that if it were just a loose hardware connection of some sort, you'd expect it to be problematic all day...or until it got jostled or something. But that's the thing: once I jiggle it once in the morning to get the screen to flicker from white-out to normal login window, it works without issue all day. And then the same sequence is required the next morning.

It's not the END of the world (since as i explained, once I get it working it stays working) just a daily annoyance that I can't seem to wrap my head around...

 

[hedwar2011]

No, it's some annoying proprietary power cable with a circular tip.


HDMI cable.

Yes, the mystery here is that if it were just a loose hardware connection of some sort, you'd expect it to be problematic all day...or until it got jostled or something. But that's the thing: once I jiggle it once in the morning to get the screen to flicker from white-out to normal login window, it works without issue all day. And then the same sequence is required the next morning.

It's not the END of the world (since as i explained, once I get it working it stays working) just a daily annoyance that I can't seem to wrap my head around...

I can't stand those type of adapters. I'm going to assume that it also has a power brick in the middle somewhere then which does nothing but expand the possibilities of where the issue could be.