jleelakers43

click on one of our sponsors! OR REMOVE ADS

it happened 3 times already today. never happened b4. i was just looking at some websites, doing some stuff (chatting, webrats.....) and my lcd becomes all black and it comes back alive (everythings normal) after like 1 second maybe. anyone know anything about this problem? is it the lcd's problem or my computer's problem? thnx

ButterMup

I'm not an LCD technician - in fact, I avoid them like the plague, because I've yet to find one with high enough contrast and a quick enough refresh rate that it doesn't bother my eyes - but this sounds suspiciously like something my old CRT used to do.

I might be remiss in asking, so don't think I'm making you out to be stupid, but...have you checked the monitor's connection to your video card? Sometimes these things wiggle loose, and the cable can jostle itself just enough through the computer's vibrations to "cut out" periodically like yours is doing.
It's always the simplest things that are the most perplexing, so I would definitely check to make sure my cable was securely tightened down before doing anything else.
I'd recommend that you crack the case and make sure the video card itself is secured also, but I don't think you want to do that unless it's necessary. If you do feel comfortable opening up your box, though, then by all means go ahead and do it. You'd be surprised how often components just sort of shake themselves loose.

Feel free to report back here if that's not the problem.

jleelakers43

i just checked all the cables. it doesnt "cut out" often tho but i'll see if everythings fine now. right now i dont know if that was the problem or not. i'll def report back. thnx for ur help butter.

jleelakers43

ok it just happened again. i think its my computer's problem. it froze for a couple of seconds, then "cut out", and its back to normal.

jleelakers43

i clicked on a page and it was loading then that ^ happened.

ButterMup

That's weird, man.
I really, really hoped that just tightening up the connections would do the trick, becasue I'm not all that familiar with LCDs and their inherent troubles, and am a little bit flummoxed by this.

From the way you describe it, I'm assuming that this monitor has been performing as normal for as long as you've had it, and the recent "black outs" have been a complete surprise. If it has been showing any other symptoms of wear & tear or old age, let me know, because while LCDs typically last 5 to 6 years, sometimes they do go bad beforehand; just like anything else, you occasionally get a lemon.
If the monitor has been seeming less bright than usual lately, displaying abnormal color "bars" across the width of the display, or if the images don't refresh as well as they used to, resulting in some "ghosting" or abnormallly indistinct blurring of images as they moves across the screen, then odds are it's just getting old, and is about to buy the farm anyway.

Another consideration, which harkens to it being a system problem instead of a monitor issue, is one of low wattage.
While the typical LCD only consumes about half the wattage of a CRT of the same size, the fact remains that if your power supply isn't giving you enough juice, your monitor can and will get a little wonky.
That's another reason why knowing how long you've had the monitor, and if it has been displaying other symptoms before now, would be handy.

Have you added any components to the system recently? Video cards, expansion cards (USB ports, Firewire adapters, that sort of thing), sound cards, extra cooling fans, case lighting, diodes, external drive attachments, even processor upgrades all suck up wattage, and if you don't ramp up the power supply to match, you're going to get some brownouts in various features such as video display, and possibly even system-wide crashes.

Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know what kind of output your power supply has? Usually, we're talking 300-350 watts anymore, though it might be a little lower if your system is older, or higher if it's modded all to hell.

And lastly, also out of curiosity, what kind of video card do you have installed? This is the most wattage-hungry component of any system, and can definitely be a major cause of display issues (obviously), if it's not getting enough love.

If you have any information which might help myself and anyone else who cares to pitch in to get an idea for the type of system we're up against, it'd be much appreciated.
Right now, I'll be honest...short of your monitor getting old, or your display components not getting enough juice, I'm fresh out of ideas.

I guess you could always try upgrading to the manufacturer's latest drivers for both the monitor and video card (which is totally the generic cop-out answer), but an outdated driver doesn't explain why this just suddenly started happening out of the clear blue, unless you recently started running some new software that your system drivers aren't equipped to handle...

jleelakers43

this lcd has been performing as normal for as long as i've had it. it hasnt been showing any other symptoms of wear & tear or old age. everything works and it looks like new. i havent added any components to the system recently. got this lcd in 2004 feb btw. its a NEC MultiSync LCD1765. im using nvidia geforce fx 5200. and i dont know the output of my power supply.

ButterMup

Hmmm...any information I can find points to the LCD1765 actually being one of the better LCDs on the marlet, performance-wise. I doubt that it's going bad this early, especially if you haven't had any prior indications of malfunction.
Also, the GeForce FX5200 isn't really an inordinate power-hog (not like the 5900 line...good god, you should see all the wires inside my case), so you should be able to get by on 300 watts, which is pretty average for a power supply.
I'm willing to bet you've got at least that much juice.

With that being said, I kind of wonder if you're not overheating, maybe.
Is your system in a temperature-regulated room?
And if so, does that room routinely stay below 70 degrees or so?
As silly as it sounds, I know a lot of people (myself included, actually, since I moved into this apartment with one room which isn't connected to the central air...which is, of course, the only room with a cable hookup for my modem) start getting weird computer symptoms once the weather starts warming up if their box isn't somewhere in the house where it stays uniformly cool.
During the Winter months, it's obviously not a problem as the air stays cool enough to keep things chill, which is why such flukes really pop up out of nowhere during the Spring and Summer.

One way to check if your system is heating up is just to put your hand on the side of the case. If it feels warm to the touch, then you're running too hot. If it's just room-temperature, or even a little bit cool (ideally), then you're probably good enough.
A better way to do it, of course, is to download a program like MotherboardMonitor ( http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ ).
Install that little guy, fire it up, and check the readout in the lower-right-hand corner of your taskbar. If you're going hotter than...oh...about 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 Celsius or so) inside the case, then you're getting a little too warm. Video cards tend to really freak out when they get a little too warm, causing all sorts of bizarre issues.

If that's the case, it might be a good idea to crack the case open and let it run with air circulating, and even point a fan at it if you can. After testing that for a while, if it stops your problem, they you've found your culprit.

If not, then...um...hmmm...
You've got me stumped here, jlee.
I'll wrack my little brain and see if I can think of something else, but in the meantime, I'd check my system temps if I were you, just to be on the safe side.

jleelakers43

i dont think my system is heating up. i just checked. its actually cold. do i still need to download MotherboardMonitor?

ButterMup

*sigh*
Nah, don't worry about it. If your box is actually cool to the touch, you aren't having any heat issues.

Damn it.
Let me think about this, and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

jleelakers43

alrite. sry to bother u.
thnx for helpin me.

ButterMup

It's not that much of a bother - don't worry about it.

So, I did some poking around last night and this morning, and even called a friend of mine to see if he had any better ideas (which resulted in a conversation mostly consiting of him going, "Did he try ____?" and me going, "Yeah...didn't work.")
He did mention the possibility of the inverter going bad, which is the "power brick" that you plug into the wall to provide electricity to the monitor, but again, your monitor seems to be one of the more reliable LCDs on the market, and it's only a year old, so I can't imagine there's a very high probability for parts fizzling out already.

The only thing I can think of it that it's still a video card issue.
Your system's not running hot, so it's probably not overheating...
Your drivers are updated and your system configuration hasn't changed recently, so there are no new conflicts...
You haven't loaded yourself down with any new high-wattage additions lately, so if your power supply was adequate before, then it should still be fine...

I know we tried securing the monitor cable at the outset, but one thing I mentioned that we didn't try is opening the case itself and re-seating the actual video card, to make sure it's secure in its slot. I'm always a little trepidous telling people to open their computers and start poking around by themselves, and I find that a lot of users share those same concerns, but it's one of the few remaining avenues we haven't explored.
As I said before, sometimes these things jiggle free thanks to inherent vibration in the system, and it can cause sporadic faults like yours, as the connections will short out periodically if not totally secure.

I hate to ask this of you, but it is pretty easy to do, by comparison to other things you could be doing inside your case:
Think you could open your case and push on the video card a little bit?

Opening the case is the easy part, and has no inherent risks, so don't worry about that.
Just pull out the screws (if you even have screws - some cases just have thumb-push releases), pull off the metal casing, and you're in. No wires, no mess, no fuss.

Once you're in, it's hard to tell you exactly how to identify your video card, since every manufacturer makes their look a little different, but one thing all newer video cards have in common is a big, chunky heatsink attached to the underside.
There should only be a couple of cards in your system (video, audio, maybe a NIC card), so it's safe to say that the video card will be the only one with the massive heatsink on it.
Like this:

or or

...Except they'll be seated upside-down inside your case, so the heatsink (the black or silver square...or the copper ring, in the case of MSI's cards, because they think they're too cool to go with the flow) will be on the underside of the card.

Anyway, once you find it, make sure you ground yourself before touching it.
Basically, just put your hand on any metal portion of the computer's casing - that serves as a runoff for your body's natural static electricity, which is otherwise surprisingly dangerous to PC components.

Then just...jiggle the card a bit. Firmly, but don't go crazy on it.

Push down on the card slightly, and push it "in", which is to say "toward the motherboard". Basically, act as though you're pressing it back into the slot which it's plugged into, because that's exactly what you're doing.
It shouldn't move very much at all if it's securely fastened, and should sit quite comfortably in its goove.

Once you're confident that your video card isn't going anywhere, go ahead and put the cover back on the case and re-boot, then wait a while and see if this happens again.

Honestly, I can't think of a single other thing which might be causing this, unless you really do just have a lemon monitor. I won't write tha possiblity off entirely, but I'd say there about a 95% chance that it isn't your montior's fault.
If at all possible, you could always disconnect the monitor and connect to another system, maybe in your houe, or at a friend or relative's place (LCDs are pretty light and easy to transport), just to see if it runs on their system without trouble.

If you have any questions, let me know.
I'm still thinking about what else the issue could possibly be, but like I said, we're running out of troubleshooting options, here.

jleelakers43

it seems to be working fine today but i'll see. if it blacks out again, i'll open the case and re-seat the video card. thnx

jleelakers43

no black outs today. hopefully the problem is gone now. thnx for ur help.