Lately I need few attempts to start up my computer because of a black screen

Gonzo100100

Gonzo100100

Gonzo100100

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12 Jan 2013
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68
I have a strange problem lately. When I turn my computer on in the morning it starts up as usual except the monitor that stays black. When I turn off and on the monitor, it says no signal for a moment and then turns black.

At this point I turn off my PC, then turn on and the same happens, I repeat few times, next I try to turn the PC and the power off and after I start the computer on again sometimes everything comes back to life and I get a view on my screen. Sometimes however it doesn’t help so I keep trying until it works. I try to plug out and in cables to graphic card, switch socket where the monitor cable is plugged in my video cart. Today it took me almost 10 min until something miraculously started to work. I assume it will get worse, so I need to fix it somehow.

I thought if it is graphic card but when I test the video card and that is to run the most demanding game, I have for few ours it works as well as when the card was new 3 years ago and the temperatures on Speccy are normal.

Could you please provide some ideas how to localise the source of the problem?


My PC:

Motherboard is Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H

Graphic card: GTX970

SSD,

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155

Power Supply: Evaga Supernova 650 2G
 
A dodgy Windows update (two in a row in fact) was pulled in recent days, so consider that among other possibilities. It included freezes and boot issues among other issues not listed. I don't know when exactly you started encountering the black screen issue. Does the monitor have a different port for you to try?

Given the age of the motherboard you should replace the CMOS battery as part of maintenance. CR2032 lithium coin.

Could try a Custom + Clean install of the graphics drivers even though it's running games fine.

Your CPU has integrated graphics so hook it up to a motherboard graphics port (may need to take out the GPU for this) and carry out repeated shutdowns and startups, to see if there's any difference.
 
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Hi, I come back to this thread because my problem recently got worse. From when I wrote last time, I could switch the port to second one on my GPU if I experienced the black screen on start-up and it all worked all right. However, now I switch the ports and I am able to successfully get the screen to work after few attempts which is annoying.

What I can add, I tried to plug the monitor to the integrated motherboard graphics port and it always starts up properly with no black screen.

I assume that it may be something wrong with the GPU but there again, I have no performance issues, I can run the most demanding video game for hours and there are no black screens whatsoever. (In the past when I had a graphic card issue, the best way to check if I need a replacement was to run the most demanding game for a while and that way I knew). The problem appears when I start up the computer (the same happens when I turn it on from a sleep).

I ordered new CMOS battery, but I don’t think it will change anything.

I also tried to perform a clean install of the GPU drivers after I wrote here few months ago but it didn’t help.

What I did today as a temporary solution, I changed sleep time for ‘never’ and I am not going to turn the computer off anymore until I fix it.

Do you have anymore ideas about what to do?
 
Certain type of capacitors works better when warm, so those could be going bad in graphics card and cause problems when cold booting.
(no problems when powering down and starting warm PC?)
Fault in motherboard (or PSU) should cause same problem with integrated GPU.

I agree you should try with other graphics card.
 
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