Hi all.
I need to pick your collective brains.

Recently, my video monitors have started to flick on/off at random times (and I mean random). They always seem to do this at about the same time, though never perfectly in time/sync with each other. They also always go back to showing what was on screen after a short delay.

I tried one of them on my other computer and it didn’t exhibit this sort of behaviour.

I’ve had this before with a different monitor and I ended up replacing all of the electrolytic capacitors on the video board and the monitor has behaved perfectly ever since.

I tried this with one of the monitors currently acting up, but it makes no difference.

I therefore suspect that the graphics card might need replacing?

I will check that it’s seated properly and all connections are ok, but assuming they are, would the consensus be that it is indeed a graphics card problem?


Thanks in advance,


Jonesey

Well, I had a graphics card when heated up it quit working which ended being only when I played a computer game otherwise it would work. Clean the fan and all of that, but it was the paste between the GPU and the heat sink on the unit. You can replace that, but I ended up getting a newer faster video (graphics then) card. The signal is not getting to the monitor at those times, and if the light is blinking on the monitor showing that like when the computer is off and the monitor is still on (sleep mode persay like), it probably is the video card if nothing is wrong with the monitor, but usually it will be the video card. There are utube videos are redoing the video card and making it work again, like getting the paste to put between the GPU and heat sink and with some heating up the video card on aluminum foil for 8-10 minutes and letting it slowly cool down. I think somewhere on a thread a video link was given perhaps but then I suppose it can be searched on utube again, depending probably on which video card you have.

where did you get this PC, if I may ask good sir ?
was it a private build?

sorry to hear about this kid.

You've not indicated what kind of graphics card or how your displays are connected to it, so it's difficult to say.

But electrolytic caps on graphics cards can go bad also, plenty of bad caps around, so that would be a logical place to check (for leaking or bulging caps, as you are probably already aware).

And as spacealf already mentioned, gfx cards can overheat, so application of a better thermal compound (the new nano-diamond thermal paste is very effective ime) might help too, especially if it's a passively-cooled "silent" heatsink card with no fan.

Good luck!

I'm not sure of the make/model of card as this system was built for me by a specialist DAW builder in the UK.

I do know however that it's an older type (not necessarily old in years) as my monitors only support VGA - no HDMI here!

And yes, I did a full capacitor replacement on one monitor but both are still flicking on/off randomly

Tonight I'm going to check all connections and move my known working monitor into the studio and hook it up, just to eliminate the monitor from the equation

I hope it's the graphics card as it's the cheapest thing to replace!

Right, it's not the monitor. My other good monitor also blips out when connected to the DAW.

The graphics card seems to be seated properly, and I've just remembered that this card was only fitted back in January after the other one threw a wobbly and blue-screened me. some of you might remember this.

The one they've fitted seems to be new - but I've now gone out of the warranty period so it looks like I'll have to replace it, if indeed this is the problem.

Here's a photo of the existing card:





Anyone have any thoughts on this?

There are 2 similar looking slots available on the motherboard.

1. will they accept the card in one of them?
2. would it be worth a try?

Thanks

Ah hard to tell, but all video cards nowadays are with a PCI-e slot (which is the longer one), but it looks as if you have three of those (which I never have seen, usually one long card slot, and a couple of 1X PCI-e slots (the real short ones.) That is because the graphics card runs at 4X speed (which needs the big slot) while audio cards or other hookups use the short short slot only running at 1X speed. No brand name on the video card, so if having another one to just hook up and download drivers for it, or a CD disk whatever, would help. On the video graphics card, you see the long row of gold plated connections, and then a break and the short row of gold plated connections, just go inside the machine and match the card to the slot that makes the look like the card fit, then put it in all the way making sure it fits in the slot. You can not change things to make it fit correctly in any other slot, they are all different sizes unless having more than one of the same. And like always the slots look so close together that the video card hangs lower in the slot covering up other ones. Can't really tell but the top one looks like a PCI-e slot, while the next one down looks like a PCI slot (and they are not the same) while the two short short ones looks like a PCI-e 1X slot while the bottom ones look like a PCI-e long slot. Usually computers only have one long and one short PCI-e slots while the other ones usually are PCI slots. But anymore they are not including all those slots in computer either anymore, so just line of the card and see if it looks as if it fits in the slot, and carefully put it in. The other way to tell is because the one end of the slot is a pivot that snaps the card in when it is all the way and holds it in, the only other slots that do that are memory slots. PCI slots do not have that on the one end.

Thanks for your detailed comments spacealf.

I bit the bullet last night and put the card into a different slot, and so far so good - both screens have been running for a good couple of hours with absolutely no glitches.

So either it just needed to be seated properly or there's a fault in the mobo slot.

Either way, I'll mark this thread solved.

Thanks again for your input.

Glad to see you got the system working.  And hey, doubleplus good that you marked the problem SOLVED.  Always nice.

@