Whenever I want to use my computer, I need to turn it on, unplug the computer, plug it back in, and then turn it on again for the monitor to work. I don't know if it's the power supply or the video card. It is not the monitor, for I tried 3 and all do the same. This does not work if I unplug it and plug it pack in before I turn it on the first time. This has been bothering me for a while now. The computer starts up fine, and Windows loads, but the monitor will not show it. I have tried everything and I really need help with this. Computer Specs: Sapphire ATI Radeon 3870 512MB GDDR4 AMD Phenom X4 9950 2.6 Quad-core 140W 4 GB DDR2-800 G-Skill 500GB Hard Drive ASRock A780GXE/128M Motherboard 580W Power Supply
My guess (and it is a bit of a guess!) would be the video card. To be honest the only real way to determine what is going on is to try a different video card or psu. I dont think the psu because you say it gets to windows fine if you dont do your bit of trickery. I couldnt say why the graphics card might behave like this. Faulty capacitor maybe?
I've had a similar problem since I upgraded my computer. Sometimes when I start the machine after shutting it down, the screen will not come up, but instead do some odd flashing between a lit black screen and being off. I can solve this problem when I unplug the monitor from the video card and plug it back in again. It does not work if I unplug the cord from the monitor, however. I have also experienced this event when starting a game. When I closed the game (Alt+F4), the monitor worked again. Upon launching the game again, the screen stayed on and did not repeat the problem. Perhaps the video card is "forgetting" that a monitor is plugged in when something alters the display? --Just thought I'd describe what happened on my side so that it might help shed some light on the problem.
I have an update to this issue. I got my new monitor and decided to try the dual monitor setup. I noticed the issue still existed with my old monitor when the computer restarted or the resolution changed. I tried switching the DVI ports on my graphics card so that my new monitor was in the old one's slot. The problem remains unchanged in that my old monitor still blacks out, but my new one does not. Since the first DVI port does not seem to be the issue, I would assume that the issue is with the monitor and not the video card... but what could it be? Ironically, the same thing happened to my computer at work. They switched the problematic monitor with another one and the issue stopped. By the way Keirasen, what brand of monitor do you have? Both my monitor and the one at work were Viewsonics. If yours is too, maybe it's a brand issue.
This is actually a known issue for ATI branded cards. My guess would be that you guys all have ATI cards. The cause is in the first DVI port. Simply unplugging the DVI cable and then plugging it back in will fix the issue. Make sure you have the latest drivers installed for your card. I had this issue the last time I owned an ATI card and found that they expected to fix it in future driver releases.
Well, if this is true, it does not explain why it happens at work too. My work computer uses two video cards: an intel onboard, and an nvidia card. I do not suspect that ATI is to blame on that one. Also, my faulty monitor is now on the second DVI port and it does the same thing, but my new monitor does not do it on either port. There may still be truth in what you say though, as the faulty monitor did not blank out when I was using an nvidia card.
