Issues After Lightning Strike

[KaiHongTan]

Just got hit by a lightning strike. Tried turning the pc back on, it runs fine. But for some reason it won't detect my displayport and hdmi displays. But a DVI display works. The displayport one is my main monitor. 

 

When I plug in the displayport display alone, it works until the windows boot screen finishes, then it shows no signal. DVI works perfectly fine all the way. Not sure if it's a hardware issue or something related to the driver since it stops working when windows loads up which means something is wrong when the Nvidia drivers are loaded. 

 

I also tried uninstalling the drivers. Using the basic windows display driver, the displayport display works. Then I tried to install Nvidia drivers again, as soon as it installs, it stops working and shows no signal again, which confirms the theory of it stops working when the drivers are loaded. Really not sure whether this is a software or hardware issue at this point. I would imagine it being a hardware issue because of the lightning strike, but it's kinda weird how the issue also relates to the driver. 

[homeap5]

Install some VNC so you can control your PC using phone. Then you may check what is displayed on screen even if you see nothing on your monitor. Made settings (resolution, refresh rate) using that remote control and check. Maybe it's just wrong monitor id and your driver tries to set strange resolution.

[KaiHongTan]

3 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

Install some VNC so you can control your PC using phone. Then you may check what is displayed on screen even if you see nothing on your monitor. Made settings (resolution, refresh rate) using that remote control and check. Maybe it's just wrong monitor id and your driver tries to set strange resolution.

I can do everything fine on my DVI display. It just doesn't detect the HDMI and Displayport displays at all with Nvidia drivers installed. 

[homeap5]

2 minutes ago, KaiHongTan said:

I can do everything fine on my DVI display. It just doesn't detect the HDMI and Displayport displays at all with Nvidia drivers installed. 

You can follow my advice or not.

 

I only suggest that you can see what happens when you're using display port. You can't do that without remote view.

[homeap5]

51 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

OP has a visual via DVI. barring dark desktop viewports (in which case windowskey+arrowkeys can help target the active screen to a working display connection) he has the means to control any setting in windows

He doesn't SEE what is going on. Using VNC is easy solution and will not be guessing.

 

Your methods are like "try everything". It takes much longer than using my method. But still I don't say that they're wrong.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Troubleshooting

[KaiHongTan]

6 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

just to establish a baseline, do the following items in no particular order:

• shut down your PC, turn off the power supply, hold the power button for 10 seconds, leave it for a while, turn it back on
• grab a spare displayport cable and see if that works
• (if available) mount the GPU on the secondary PCIe slot
• visually inspect the motherboard, the GPU, and the PCIe power cable heads for any burns or damage
• (if you haven't used this already) use DDU to uninstall your drivers, then re-install

if everything checks out and still has the problem, post back. it's possible that the GPU might have an issue. i'm cautious to definitively say that it's the GPU this quickly, because i had a 1060 which died on me while folding, then suddenly worked again after a week of sitting it out

 

OP has a visual via DVI. barring dark desktop viewports (in which case windowskey+arrowkeys can help target the active screen to a working display connection) he has the means to control any setting in windows

Already tried DDU and clean installation of drivers. The monitors always work up to the point where the graphics drivers finish installing. 

 

Reseated the GPU and tried the other slot, same issue. 

 

I turned fast boot on in bios so the Nvidia drivers will only load when logged in to windows and not on boot so I can nail down the issue. Seems like my theory is correct, it only happens when the Nvidia driver gets loaded in, with fast boot on I was able to get into my desktop until the Nvidia drivers got loaded(verified by right clicking and there was no Nvidia control panel option yet, then once the monitor gets no signal again I plugged in my DVI monitor and right clicked on desktop and Nvidia control panel is showing) 

 

Seems like an issue with the hardware and drivers. Another interesting thing I found is, while it works with the windows basic display driver, windows doesn't detect the monitor name and specs correctly, device manager says its a generic non-pnp monitor, I tried manually installing the monitor drivers from the manufacturer but it doesn't seem to help because once I installed the Nvidia drivers it doesn't seem to detect the display at all. 

 

At this point I think it might be an hardware issue causing only the digital outputs to be fked, which explains why only DVI is working but hdmi and dp are not working. 

 

What I'll try next is to try the GPU on another machine and see if I can recreate the issue, if it still has the same issue basically confirms it being a hardware problem. 

 

Damn lightning strikes. I had everything hooked up to belkin surge protectors. But my modem and router was gone with the lightning strike as well And my old pc that I'm using as a server seems to not be starting up too, haven't even had time to look at that yet. 

[KaiHongTan]

On 7/6/2020 at 11:59 AM, VegetableStu said:

yeah this would be an ideal check to see if the problem is isolated to the GPU. if it works on another machine, check the driver version and see if the same would work on the first PC. also if the other machine has an nvidia GPU, try bringing that over to the first PC to see if that arrangement works as well

Tried on another pc and it works. Put it back into my own PC, tried a HDMI cable to the main monitor previously connected with DP and it now works. Weird, possible that the DP cable got fried or smth liddat? Tried on the other machine at my friend's using his monitor and DP cable and it worked fine. 

 

Also found another issue, ethernet stopped working. I know that the electricity can go through ethernet and the router got fried so it might have zapped my ethernet port too. Device manager still detects it tho, just says it's unplugged, common if it's fried? 

 

If at the end of the day it's just the ethernet port is fried I can just get a NIC and it's all fine, which is the best case scenario, I just need another DP cable to see if it's the cable that's the issue, or the other logical theory is only my monitor's DP port. But at least now I can use it through HDMI, which most of my problems are solved. Just need to know if I'm missing out on anything regarding the ethernet port. 

[KaiHongTan]

12 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

try another cable first, then see if windows network troubleshooter is of any help. alternatively plug to another router or PC if you can and see if the PC picks up

 

if still no dice, unmount the motherboard and check around the ethernet port on both sides of the board for discolouration, but at this point it's probably too much effort to be certain of hardware damage if you're willing to get a NIC card anyway

Yep at this point if everything else works fine I'll just get a cheap gigabit NIC lul not worth the extra effort. I'll wait till the new router comes tomorrow and do a final check. 

 

Thanks for the help!