Dual Monitor "No Signal" Shenanigans

D

Deeky

Gawd
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Messages
982
Okay, so, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I'm running a GTX 285 with 260.99 connected to a 24" monitor and a 32" LG HDTV sharing an extended desktop. Nine times out of ten, when I come out of standby or even from cold boot, the HDTV fails to pick up a signal and only the 24" wakes up. The LG becomes invisible, I'm unable to detect it.

This isn't new. I've posted about it before, in fact.

BUT ... the strange thing is, Windows somehow manages to detect the LG while it is turned off. I power it down, I hear the chime that a new device has been connected and the 24" reverts back to "secondary" monitor status (just the wallpaper with no icons). As soon as I turn the LG back on, Windows drops the connection and the 24" reverts back to main monitor with full desktop and the LG reports "no signal".

What the heck is going on?
 
This is probably more a Video card question, but I dont' know how much luck you will get with it.

I had my own weirdness after a driver upgrade (Also monitor + HDTV):
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1544566

I went through very odd behaviors that one monitor would come up while booting only to disappear and windows. I went through a few cycles of connector swaps/driver uninstall/reinstall until I got something I can live with. You may want to try a connection swap and see if that makes it better or worse.

I still find dual monitor flaky...
 
Snowdog said:
This is probably more a Video card question, but I dont' know how much luck you will get with it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my thought exactly. I re-posted in the video card forum seconds after submitting it here.

I've tried every conceivable connection combo, from VGA to HDMI to DVI and all manner of adapter in between.

The only solution I've found so far: Switch to an ATI card. I borrowed a friends ASUS EAH5570 and ran with that for about 24 hours. No a single glitch.

Granted, I haven't tried rolling back the drivers. Yet.
 
Did you try just flipping the connection Port1-TV Port2-Monitor and vice versa.

Vastly different response for me. It actually was making my main monitor dissapear, eventually I switched back. After a driver reinstall and a swap back I have satisfactory (but not great)

My first flaked on a driver update through, windows update. Since then I only update my graphics drivers manually.
 
I install everything manually, yeah. I don't trust my OS! I'm fairly OCD about it. I still run Driver Sweeper in safe mode, for instance.

I've flip-flopped both displays back and forth between DVI ports with no luck. Nothing seems to help.

Very irritating.
 
New development:

I shutdown, disconnected my 24" HP and tried to boot the LG solo. It made it to Windows, but the resolution was way wrong AND capped at 720p. This was via HMDI. Anywho, I tried to change to 720p and the LG lost signal and fell back into it's pattern of detecting when turned off, losing signal when turn on. This is the first time I was able to re-create the power on/power off oddness after making it into Windows. The problem appears to be related to incorrect resolution information.

I wonder if it's my HDMI cable or my adapter?
 
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I can tell you that I was getting monitor flicker and occasionally a screen would just stop displaying anything for awhile using u2410's on a radeon 4890. I put in a new amd 6870 last week and have had no problems since. I'm inclined to say that a lot of video cards(probably older ones) aren't giving enough juice down the hdmi/dp ports. I don't think I ever had a problem with a dvi port on my old card.
 
breakspirit said:
I can tell you that I was getting monitor flicker and occasionally a screen would just stop displaying anything for awhile using u2410's on a radeon 4890. I put in a new amd 6870 last week and have had no problems since. I'm inclined to say that a lot of video cards(probably older ones) aren't giving enough juice down the hdmi/dp ports. I don't think I ever had a problem with a dvi port on my old card.
Click to expand...

Could be. I just posted using a DVI to VGA cable. Made it into Windows at 1080p but text was terrible. Without powering anything down, I yanked the VGA and switched to my DVI-HDMI. It immediately picked up a signal, but again it had dropped down to 720p. :confused: Detecting the display under Windows fixed the resolution issue, but there's obviously something wrong.
 
Happy to report, the problem is solved. All that was required was a simple cable swap. I grabbed the 8 foot HDMI cable from my Blu-ray player upstairs and swapped it with the 4 footer I've been using.

Haven't dropped the signal since.

So far, with the "new" cable, the signal is picked up following extended periods of inactivity without fail; through reboot, shutdown, standby, even disconnecting/reconnecting the cable in mid-operation.

Maybe the old cable is faulty. Maybe the new cable is higher quality. I've even heard that the length of the cable may be the deciding factor, that more cable can actually solve HDCP handshake issues.

Either way, everything is working great! Thanks all!
 
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