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Recently my computer's display function has started acting up rather strangely.

When starting up after being shut down or restarted, the screen remains entirely black - no POST screen, but I can hear the standard beeps and other noises - and the little blue power LED on the monitor (an Iiyama ProLite E2208HDD) flashes on and off, and seemingly does so at different rates throughout the entire startup procedure. Most of the time when this happens, the screen remains in its blank state even when I log in (typing blind of course - everything but the display seems to be in working order), but when power cycled enough times (using either the restart button or the shutdown button on the front of the case), the power LED on the monitor remains off, and the screen remains black until it reaches the Windows 7 login screen, where I can log in and almost everything works as normal.

Everything except when a program tries to run in a resolution that isn't 1920x1080 and/or a colour depth lower than True Colour (32 bit). Then the screen reverts back into its black and LED-flashy state, and the only way that I've found to get it out of that state is to restart it and go through the whole rigamarole of trying to get it to work again.

Hence I'm loath to shutdown/restart the computer or use certain programs until I know what exactly the problem is so I can fix it - is my graphics card (an ATI Radeon HD 5700) on the fritz, or is it my monitor? I've already tried updating my drivers and this has had seemingly no effect, so my best guess is some kind of hardware failure, but which hardware?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There is a relatively simple if heavy way of testing this out. Get a friend who has a computer and take your monitor to his place. Plug it in instead of his own. If the monitor works fine it's the graphics card.

Annoyingly, my nearest friend does not have a DVI output on their computer. They do have a monitor with an HDMI connection that could go into the back of my computer, but I don't think swapping monitors while the PC is switched on would be a smart idea. Damn.

Something similar is happening to my monitor too. When I got home a little over an hour ago, I turned on my monitor and it was black. The led was blue indicating that the monitor is on and not in sleep mode. I'd have to reboot the computer so the monitor would function again. I know it isn't my graphics card since it did that with my previous card. Oddly enough, most of the time this happens, when I reboot, Win 8.1 updates. My monitor is from AOC.

NoXion wrote:Annoyingly, my nearest friend does not have a DVI output on their computer. They do have a monitor with an HDMI connection that could go into the back of my computer, but I don't think swapping monitors while the PC is switched on would be a smart idea. Damn.

I don´t understand this statement. Why would it be a bad idea to swap monitors while the PC is switched on and why can you not swap monitors while the PC is off?

salm wrote:I don´t understand this statement. Why would it be a bad idea to swap monitors while the PC is switched on

To be honest, I'm speculating. I'm afraid that if I were to do so, an electrical short might happen when removing or inserting cables, potentially causing further damage to one or more of the display components. Of course, desperation might drive me to try it anyway, but I'd like to avoid doing so without first getting some inkling of whether it is a good idea or not.

and why can you not swap monitors while the PC is off?

Because if it turns out that the monitor is fine and it's the graphics card that is fucked, then I'll have to either keep power cycling the PC in order to get the screen to work again, or I'll have to pop to the internet cafe to seek further advice. If I can safely plug and unplug monitors while the PC is switched on, then I can avoid having to do either of those chores.

I plug running monitors in and out of running computers almost on a daily basis. Nothing has ever hapened and I´ve never heard of it causing trouble elsewhere.

salm wrote:I plug running monitors in and out of running computers almost on a daily basis. Nothing has ever hapened and I´ve never heard of it causing trouble elsewhere.

That's reassuring to know, thank you.

The only time you should reasonably worry about shorts with computers is when opening them up and working on them. Even then, shorts are rare in my experience. No ESD strap, no fear.

I would agree with trying another monitor. If your graphics card has HDMI out, you might try using your TV, if you have one with HDMI, with your computer. And if you wanted to test something with no DVI, but had VGA you can find adapters for converting DVI to VGA. They usually come with graphics cards (I think I have 6 of them floating around).