Are monitors malfunctioning due to the Nvidia graphics card?
Are monitors malfunctioning due to the Nvidia graphics card?
I came over from reddit. I think I'm banned from r/techsupport for trying to post this. If you mentioned Windows 10, the post is automatically removed. I messaged the moderators, and then everything on my original post got removed. I just tried a couple times more now... Win10 listed in the file name. Thread removed. Tried a third time. Doesn't post. So I came over here.
I built a new Windows 11 computer. It's got an
Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070 TI
graphics card. Latest drivers installed, studio version. Today, I borrow an essentially new plain 4070 card, installing the latest drivers for that (same driver file number but slight difference in the letters, if that matters). I'm starting to see similar behavior with the plain 4070 card, so it's probably not the card then. I was thinking maybe I got a dud graphics card.
The monitors and cables are pretty much the same as the Win10 desktop. Everything was fine on the Win10 set up.
I've got three monitors. All Asus 24". Just basic monitors. Those I'm aiming for 1920x1080 at 60Hz like I had on the Win10 desktop set up.
For the Win10 set up it was...
left monitor -- HDMI That's been fine with the Win11 set up.
middle and right -- Just DVI out of the Win10 graphics card.
The asus monitors are VGA, DVI, and HDMI. No DP inputs. I'd like to keep these monitors.
Win11 set up...
Left monitor -- Still straight HDMI the whole way. No problems with that one.
MIddle -- A long DVI cable. DVI in on the monitor. DP to DVI adapter from the graphics card DP port. So DP out of the graphics card, DP to DVI adapter, longer DVI cable (which worked fine with the Win10 set up).
Right -- DP to DVI adapter out of the DP port on the graphics card. A regular 4-6" DVI cable. DVI into the right monitor input.
The problems...
A first just a black screen on the middle monitor. The power button is blue, so I think it's getting a signal but maybe a blank signal or black signal. "A signal" so the monitor doesn't time out and go to sleep, blue button still. But then the middle monitor will get a normal 1920x1080 60hz screen. So great. Until...
I get a grey fuzz static image that pops up over the whole middle monitor. It looks very similar to this...
https://i.sstatic.net/e1tLV.jpg
It's something like 2-4 second fuzz, 2-4 seconds normal, over and over alternating. I've let it go like that, and it will keep doing that forever if I don't interrupt it. It needs something -- like adjusting the refresh rate higher to 70-something (which set the resolution really low like 600x800) and then setting the resolution back to 1920x1080 (which sets the refresh back to 60hz on its own). Maybe unplugging the monitor gets rid of the grey alternating fuzz for a while. Maybe switching the monitor input to HDMI or VGA and then back to DVI temporarily fixes it.
(And then the left monitor on straight HDMI from the graphics card to the monitor has been fine the whole time. I think. At first, Windows 11 is favoring the right monitor so the other two are blank. Right now, I've got the right monitor set as my main monitor in windows.
The grey alternating fuzz is super annoying of course.
I also noticed there can be red lines on the right monitor. Those are immediately obvious though. It's most noticeable when there's something solid black and then I realize, ah, yes, there are little red horizontal lines all over. My eyes aren't great and I'm not looking for that. I'm not sure, but I think those red lines might come up when the grey fuzz comes up.
I tried an ubuntu live usb stick. I did the terminal line to update whatever might be needed for nvidia drivers. Ubuntu seemed pretty normal and pretty easy. Did that and then all three monitors behaved normally. Zero issues there. I expected Ubuntu to be the OS to have some issues but no. Easy. All fine there.
So if Ubuntu's ok.... Probably not something with the motherboard. If two cards do the same behavior, then not the card. So something more in Windows.
The Asus monitors are just basic office-level monitors. They're not gaming. I don't do gaming. I'll futz around with some little online browser games, which produce some basic graphics. Or youtube videos. That's about it for the height of my graphics use. It seems like when I do something more then plain webpages that that's when the grey fuzz happens.
I was wondering if maybe the graphics card starts to process more or heat up, and then the grey fuzz comes. But I tried a second card and still got grey fuzz. Just once so far. It's been ok the past 30 minutes.
I'm also leaning towards cables. I want to try a DP to HDMI cable, but I'll need a longer one. I hate spending what those cost just to try it, but the issue is also super annoying. I didn't realize how much I'm basically just using the middle monitor. Using only the left and right monitors doesn't quite work.
The DP to DVI adapters are active adapters. I alternated those. I think they're all good. One worked on another computer with zero issues. I swapped three adapters around -- Same behavior on middle monitor. Same "good" (but probably still has red lines) on the right monitor. So probably not the adapters.
And it's hard to search for.
There's something like DSP or DCP (not quite sure) that you can "just disable" in the Nvidia control panel. These Asus monitors aren't that advanced and don't have that. I'd think the graphics card is far beefier and the monitors so basic that the graphics card (actually cardS now for what I've tried) should easily be able to handle it.
Any ideas? Anything else I can troubleshoot on this? I should probably find, borrow, or buy a DP to HDMI single cable to try that. It's also a bit annoying that the cabling doesn't just work as it is, if that's the issue. DVI, so still digital.
I believe it's dual link DVI cables. They have all the pins, not the DVI cables, single link I guess, that have half the pins. I thought the shorter DVI might be single link like that, but it's got all the pins.
Know of anywhere else I can post? There's an Nvidia subreddit but it's not for techsupport. They direct me to r/techsupport but that's a bit of a pain to post in. I think I might be blocked now too. I noticed if I mentioned Windows 10 in any way it's automatically blocked. Messaging the moderators didn't help. Zero reply back. And later my replies on a post were deleted. So maybe moody moderators.
It's kind of literally "front and center" for an issue. It's taken me a while to get around to swapping out my Win10 tower (still runs fine, zero issues with graphics like this with the same set up, in terms of cables and monitors, except for adding in the DP to DVI adapters for the Win11 set up) to the Win11 one. I finally pushed to get that moved around the other day, and this graphics issues became apparently. I purposely specced the Win11 computer as a little more than I'd need for sure, and then it was stepping up that for what was actually available when I went to purchase parts. I've got what I think is an overly beefy graphics card, and I'm asking that to run standard office level 1920x1080 60hz monitors (although a whooping three monitors). I thought that would be cake for it.
Buying new monitors is an options but I really don't want to. These monitors are over ten years old now. They still work fine I think though. I don't want to spend money or research a monitor purchase right now. And -- a big and there -- If these basic office level monitors don't work, why should I expect new and better monitors to not have this same issue ? I was thinking the graphics card(s) is new and beefy but the monitors are old and basic. So maybe the graphics card is expecting more demanding tasks and expecting more advanced features, like DSP, than what these basic monitors have. Then again, why can't a beefy graphics card handle basic graphics?
I think I'll try swapping in a DP to HDMI single cable somewhere on these. (But they doesn't the DP to DVI, DVI cable still work?)
The graphics card HDMI,DP,DP,DP out. So I can't just do all HDMI. The monitors are VGA,DVI,HDMI. Hence, the DP to HDMI cable idea.
And maybe DP to DVI adapters are some certain spec level, like say 1.2, but the graphics card is using version 5 of whatever protocol.
I can the shorter adapter/DVI cable the right monitor uses on the middle monitor.
And I've got two other DVI cables I can try swapping in.
Freaking annoying though. It's burned up my attention for the last few days, as you can see with the novel of posts I've created. Still, even as a rubber duck method, it's slowly making some progress on this I think. I'm narrowing in on where the issue is. I just can't figure what "the" problem quite is. Or not necessarily knowing exactly what the problem is, but enough to have a solution or workaround for it.
Here's my third attempt at a techsupport subreddit post. Everything from the first post.
Take 3. Apparently the bot can do math. So it's the os before the current Windows OS. Looks like was probably the exe file names. (That's kind of bad to just outright ban any mentions of the previous OS. It's not like it's completely irrelevant. It could be like the mention of motherboard firmware where it gets an extra reminder post about its current status, as opposed to automatically banning the whole post.)
I had a "different" earlier Windows tower. That was some kind of a Nvidia graphics card from about ten years ago. No issues there.
This is the set up.
It's the computer tower. It was Windows older. Then I swapped out the towers, so it's a Windows 11 tower now.
Graphics card in the tower. On the Windows 11 computer, it's an Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070 Ti card. It's got the latest updates. I don't think it's an update issue. I did just the graphics drivers, nothing else, clean install, for any graphics card update/install on this Windows 11 computer.
Three monitors.
The left monitor is HDMI out from the graphics card to the monitor. That one just works. No issues there.
Middle monitor and right monitors. There are an active DisplayPort adapter out of the DisplayPort port on the graphics card, to a DVI cable, into the DVI port on the monitor. For the previous Windows older tower, that was straight DVI from the graphics card to DVI in on the monitors.
The monitors are all Asus 24" monitors. They're running at 1920x1080. There's no DSC (digital signal compression?) on these monitors. I googled. They don't have that feature. At 60Hz. I just want 1920x1080 at 60Hz for resolution. That's good enough for me.
The problems....
The right monitor is stable but it's got some red lines all over on it. That's still usable. I can ignore the red lines, but they still are there.
The middle monitor is a problem. And it's been inconsistent. At first, when I swapped the Windows 11 tower in, I got nothing on the middle monitor. The power light on the monitor remained blue however, so the monitor thought it was connected. Maybe it was receiving a blank signal. It was just a black screen. That doesn't work well to just use the left and right far monitors, and not the middle monitor. I didn't realize how much more the middle monitor is used. While I was searching for ideas, suddenly the middle monitor came back on. Great... Except, I can't trust that. After restarting the computer, the middle monitor will still be black for around five minutes, and then it comes back on. Great.... It's kind of livable. Just turn the computer on before you need it and wait I guess.... But then the middle monitor behavior changed. It would start switching from the normal screen to a screen of grey fuzz, switching back and forth after a few seconds on each screen. That is super annoying, but at least I could click an hold windows to drag them away. That grey fuzz alternating behavior has come and gone. It kind of seems like if I do something that uses graphics more on the middle monitor, that it will start alternating normal to the grey fuzz.
Graphics drivers are updated.
In the Nvidia control panel (apparently that installs even though I'm pretty sure I just did the graphics drivers only, for sure not the Nvidia geforce experience), I've tried changing the "Perform scaling on:" from Display to GPU. No change. Same behavior. It's back on Display like it was originally. Changing the scaling size in there doesn't change anything. (I'm not 100% sure I'm on the correct monitor in there. It lists two monitors as Asus and one as Anchor. They're all Asus though. There's nothing to highlight and identify a monitor in the Nvidia control panel though.) Over in the windows 11 display menu this was interesting. I switched the refresh rate from 60Hz to something else, like 72 or something higher. The middle screen will come back up, and at first it appears normal. But then I noticed the resolution has gone down to something like 800x600, so that's no good. If I switch the resolution back to 1920x1080, the screen will probably -- probably but not always because it's back on consistently for a while now -- go back to the grey fuzz screen alternating again, and the refresh rate will go back to 60Hz when I set the resolution back to 1920x1080.
Any ideas on troubleshooting this? I haven't seen this behavior before. I just assumed it's a beefier graphics card. It's got three DP out, one HDMI out. The Asus monitors are VGA, DVI, and HDMI. I'm going to try some different cables.... I did try different DP-to-DVI adapters yesterday. No change. The adapters appear to all be good since I used them on the "better" right monitor and a different computer set up where they worked fine. I didn't realize right away that the right monitor had those red lines.
I'm going to get a DP to HDMI cable. If that works, then I'll just use HDMI in on each monitor and work around the issue with the DVI ports on the monitors being used. It's not figuring the situation out at all and fixing it, but it will get the monitors back possibly (although get rid of those red lines on the right monitor).
I have found more posts online on things to try. That scaling from display to gpu was one. Apparently some monitors that have DSP capabilities need that turned off. These Asus monitors don't have DSP though, so I can't turn that off. I did try resetting the middle monitor to factory defaults. No change. I think the monitor was probably already set to defaults and not changed to begin with. The monitors are over ten years old, so I could get new monitors... But how do I know the same thing won't happen again with different monitors? These monitors worked fine with the Windows pre-11 tower, so I don't think the monitors are dying. I tried booting off an Ubuntu live usb stick. There was a little troubleshooting but that will display on all three monitors fine. I thought maybe Ubuntu would have some issue with the monitors but no. They're completely normal on Ubuntu. It's just Windows 11 that's having issues. I have a feeling it's something being out of sync somehow, so the right monitor has extra red lines, while the middle monitor either just blacks out (sending blank or black screen signal so there's a signal sent) or does the alternating normal and grey fuzz screens.
Any ideas? No, I'm not going to go to Ubuntu full time. I'm more Windows for sure. I just wanted to try Ubuntu out a bit so I made a usb stick. It's super annoying though. It's been inconsistent too, like the black middle screen for a while at first... But then the screen will come back on. I thought that was ok but then... It starts alternating grey fuzz and normal. And then... It's been fine for a few hours now. No idea why. But then I do something like a youtube video, and it goes back to alternating grey fuzz.
One reply:
The alternating grey fuzz thing looks pretty similar to this. Maybe mine is a little finer but the same effect.
https://i.sstatic.net/e1tLV.jpg
If I start trying different settings, in the Nvidia control panel or the Windows 11 display settings panel, then it can go back to normal. It usually seems to for a while.
I left it for a while while it was alternating static for a second then the normal screen for second. Those very full seconds, maybe 2-3 seconds fuzz, 2-3 second normal. When I came back, it was still doing that, so apparently it will just alternate to static endlessly if I do nothing.
I popped the side off the tower. The graphics card fans aren't running at all. There's nothing in the way of those. The graphics card and everything in the task manager looks like it's pretty much doing nothing. It's not like anything taxed or pegged out there. I do hear the fans in the tower turn on a little once in a while.
I could try stress testing it somehow to see if it's some tiny amount of stress that tips it over into something. But then it's like it's just stuck alternating like that. If I were to restart the whole computer, then it will probably just be a black screen for a while.
I'm thinking maybe try different DisplayPort to HDMI cables or adapters and see if that does anything.
That's mainly the fuzz alternating thing. Then there's the black screen for a while after the computer starts up. But then the third thing is the right monitor has little red lines on it. Mostly small, a few a little larger. It's more noticeable when it's a black background on that screen. Otherwise, I didn't notice it at first.
Another reply
That fuzz pic works if you click over to it in a new tab.
For the horizontal red lines, I can't find a pic of it. Right now.... Yeah, I don't notice it on white or color. But then I can see them on the black background on a moving video.
And my latest. I borrowed a 4070 plain card that's essential brand new. Installed drivers again. That's the same number of nvidia driver, but a few letters are different than what the 4070 ti drivers pulled down the other day. Studio drivers both times I think, which was the same as the gaming driver.
Just now with the plain 4070 card.
591.74-desktop-win[oldernumberherethatthebotdoesntlike]-win11-64bit-international-nsd-dch-whql.exe
A few days earlier, 4070 ti card.
591.74-desktop-win[oldernumberherethatthebotdoesntlike]-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe
Initially, the plain 4070 ignored the middle monitor. Then it came up. I also saw some red lines on the right monitor. It took maybe 30 minutes but the plain 4070 also grey/color fuzzed the middle monitor just like the 4070 ti card. I did "fix" of changing the refresh rate to 70-something (which flips resolution low) and then the resolution back to 1920x1080 (which flips the refresh rate back to 60hz). And it's still up. For now.
Earlier today, on the 4070 ti card, the right monitor actually got stuck on something like 600x800 after I was trying changing settings. Greyed out for changing. It came back after a restart, but the grey fuzz alternating was still there. And the red lines on the right monitor.
So if a pretty-much-brand-new plain 4070 card does just about the same behavior... And it's not quite consistent. It might be fine for a while but then return, but seems to return.... I was wondering if it might be something like the graphics card heating up. It kind of seems like when the middle screen is used for something with more graphics, like a video, that it might trigger it. So the card heats or processes more or differently... and then it gets stuck in the alternating grey fuzz thing. Most of the time I can get that back with some futzing. But it will come back.
So if it's not the graphics card... I could try earlier nvida drivers if a "latest driver" issue somehow. Could be the motherboard. I did try uninstalling the integrated graphics driver. I believe that came back on its own after a restart though.
Hope this posts....
r/techsupport
for the 11-1 which shall not be named and maybe a moody moderator...
Edit:
I've got no grey fuzz issue on the middle screen but the right monitor has the red line issue. I can't get a screenshot since it's not in what the OS think it's projecting. I could get a camera shot though possibly. But they're separate then.
Maybe there's static in that too. It looks like it's moving a bit. I thought it was red lines, horizontal. But then there are random blips of a long horizontal line that pop in and out around the screen.
I'll have to get a tablet or something to record a video. I can't get the longer popping around red lines in a picture. The small red stuff I guess it's red lines, it's like the red dots of the grey fuzz, red dots jumping all around. It looks like a swarm of flies buzzing around for the red dots. Yes, just in the black background too. I painted a black background in a paint file so I could see it. The white boards look fine. It's just the black where the red dots are. Even the pop around longer red horizontal lines don't cross into the white boarder.
Dang. Back on the different cable idea.... Why doesn't Ubuntu have any issues then if it's the cable? It should be the same regardless of the OS if it's just the cable.
Edit 2:
More signs of the cables.... I did have a short DP to HDMI cable. I just tried that on the right monitor that was for sure doing "red dots/red lines in black." It's DP from the graphics, DP to HDMI cable, HDMI into the right monitor. The monitor looks ok now. Still at 1920x1080 60 hz there. That stayed the same.
So maybe.... Something with the DP to DVI adapters.... Presents are "red dots, red popping lines over black only" with a 4 of 6 foot DVI cable, DVI into the right monitor. (I haven't tried that same DP/DVIadapter to DVI cable in the middle monitor.
And then DP/DVI adapter to the longer DVI cable.... Presents as somewhat random grey fuzz alternating issue. (And I haven't tried taking that longer DVI cable and plugging it in the right monitor or the left monitor. The cable's buried under things so that more of a pain to pull out.)
The short DP to HDMI cable might be enough to convince me to just buy a longer DP to HDMI and be done with it, if that solves it. Even if it solves it, I'm still curious on what's going on that causes that behavior, esp since Ubuntu is completely fine with it all like that. Like Windows might be trying to do something more that Ubuntu doesn't, and then the basic monitors just don't do that and respond like that, related to the length of DVI cable possibly.
Any recommendations for a good brand of DP to HDMI cable? Or a certain spec on those that Windows 11 and an Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070 Ti card are compatible with? I searched before but didn't really find a name brand that was quite what I was looking for. And then some of those are $40+ for a cable (which I might not end up even using if it doesn't solve or work around this issue).
It's working more stubbornly today.
The plain 4070 card remains unchanged.
At first, the screen didn't appear at all—just a black display. I wasn't sure if the power button was blue or not. Eventually, the screen showed up. The middle monitor took a minute or two to start showing anything, compared to the left and right monitors.
For a while it seemed normal, around 10 to 30 minutes. I thought it might be okay for a while, but then I clicked on cnn.com, which seems to have caused it to restart. After that, more webpage content appeared along with videos or clips on the front page. Immediately afterward, it started showing static screens again, and it hasn't stopped.
I attempted to change the resolution settings, but the issue returned instantly. I also tried switching the input source on the screen, and it resolved quickly.
I ordered a longer DP cable to HDMI, but those won't be available soon. I hope they work, so I don't have to keep buying more expensive cables just to test.
There are no signs that the computer or GPU is struggling much. Task manager graphs remain very low.
I rechecked the event logs, but nothing there. It seems NVIDIA doesn't generate logs either.
I found another detail: even when I lowered the resolution below 1920x1080 or to something like 600x800, the static still persisted. Changing the refresh rate briefly stopped it.
I believe the middle monitor power light remains blue continuously, indicating it is receiving a signal. If there were no signal, the light would turn orange and the monitor would shut down. However, since the screen is black, it might be displaying a black or blank image.
Yeah. I opened a small online .io game. A bit late, with some delay. It worked okay until then. Mostly just Reddit, a few videos with some graphics. The computer tower was quiet. After tweaking the refresh rate and resolution, I heard fans humming. That means switching from 60Hz to around 70Hz. Then I lowered the low-low resolution to something near 1650, just under 1920x1080. The screen went black for about 30 seconds, then it appeared at a lower resolution. Now it’s back and running smoothly.
Then at the next step down, from the game, the computer was silent. The GPU task manager showed almost no activity.
This was different though. I was switching fuzz a couple of times. I gave up. Then it stopped on its own—never just stopped. I left it to alternate and came back later. It still alternated.
The resolution was 1680x1050. I checked, it looked almost like 1920x1080. As soon as I refreshed the screen, it started alternating again.
The fuzz reminds me of a program I saw long ago that claimed to fix stuck pixels on a display. And during the time it took to post this... the alternating stopped once more.
I discovered a DP to DVI cable. It reached a limit. I wasn't able to get any display on the middle monitor. Apparently cnn.com can cause the fuzzing to happen. I tried again and got the fuzz. I adjusted it one step down from 1920x1080, and it worked better there.
Another embedded video on a news site did the same. When you click on the story, the video begins immediately and the screen alternates between fuzz. I believe the computer wasn't actively processing anything, producing no fan noises. I could restore normal operation quickly by increasing the refresh rate above 60Hz and then setting the resolution back to 1920x1080.
Hmm. A couple of days back, I opened the Nvidia control panel. I adjusted the video color settings for the first video, then changed it to "with the NVIDIA settings." After that, the middle screen seemed to stop acting up. I believe that's what happened. I also clicked on a news story right now. It showed static, but then it stopped after just one moment. Usually it would keep switching between normal and static, but this time it disappeared completely. I think it’s linked to the color setting in the panel.
Today I got an adapter for DP to HDMI. I plan to test it with a longer HDMI cable later. I also received a 10' DP to HDMI cable, though I’m not sure if that length is sufficient. I have a 15 and 20' cable on order.
Improved the color via the Nvidia control panel, though it still had issues. I was able to relocate the triggering video page, which could resolve the glitches. This appears to be progressing well — I received a DP-to-HDMI adapter and then used an HDMI cable. So far, no glitches have occurred even when attempting forced connections. The longer DP-to-HDMI cables are expected soon, which may offer a lasting solution. Alternatively, there might be a workaround for the current problem.