Weird Display Issues

Nicktrance · January 7, 2015

I usually troubleshoot all my problems and help others troubleshoot theirs but this has me kind of stumped.

To start from the beginning at one point about a year ago my 2 year old PC decided it didn't want to send a signal to my monitor when I try to boot, the monitor didn't mention that there was no signal as it would if I disconnect it but it simply showed nothing and went into standby mode as if the PC was in sleep, otherwise the PC seemed to behave normally.

The weird part is that if I left the PC completely turned off (from the PSU switch/wall socket) for a few hours and then turned it on again everything worked fine. If I then turned it off for a short while or put it into sleep the display would stop working (restarting was ok IIRC), so then I'd have to turn everything off for a few hours etc. but as long as the pc was kept on there were no issues. reinstalling drivers and even formatting the hard drive and starting fresh did not solve the issue.

Given that my monitor worked fine with other PCs and that it was a good excuse for an upgrade (especially given how loud the reference HD6870 was) I figured it was a problem with the GPU so I upgraded to a 760 ACX SC and bought a new PSU from a brand I trust just in case.

The problem then went away but now, out of the blue, it's back, the exact same issue. Monitor works fine with different PCs but using another monitor on my PC gave the same issue, the monitor seems to be ok and I find it a bit hard to believe that the GPU is experiencing the same issue (I guess I could try swapping my GPU with one from another PC to test but I really can't afford to waste too much time at the moment waiting for my pc to decide to work, so that will have wait for after the exams) so maybe motherboard/CPU (BIOS has been reset just in case but they're unchanged for the original issue), I do feel they're due for an upgrade (then again I always feel that way ) especially since the motherboard is about as entry level as they come (ASUS P8h61 PLUS) my sensible side thinks it's better to focus my money elsewhere if it's possible .

I'd appreciate it if anyone might give me some insight as to what you think the issue might be, thanks in advance.