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Monitor has started flickering

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  • 16-12-2022 12:15am
    #1
    MOH
    Registered Users Posts: 6,464 ✭✭✭


    I've a 9 year old build that has been working fine up until the last couple of weeks, when the monitor has suddenly started flickering constantly - about 20% on, 80% off, over the space of a couple of seconds.

    One of powering down / rebooting / hard reset usually clears it, but inconsistently - sometimes none of them work. When it does work, it work fine for the rest of the day/evening/session, and then I'll find it's randomly back to flickering again a day or so later.

    PSU is a Corsair CX600M, gfx is a GTX770. Never had this issue before.

    Fairly sure it's not the monitor, as with the PC power of the monitor is constant, showing a no signal message.

    Possible causes I've considered:

    • loose/faulty monitor cable: possible, though removing and reseating makes no difference when the issue is occurring
    • loose GPU: doesn't seem to be, seems properly seated and is powered OK
    • gradually failing PSU or GPU: I guess this is possibly the most likely? Both are 9 years old
    • unusual cold: either the cold itself is somehow the issue, and it's the room warming as I'm trying to get the thing working that's solving it. Or something is working itself loose due to it contracting/expanding marginally with unusual temperature variations
    • loose RAM: just because it's always loose RAM. Even when it's not loose RAM and I've checked that 5 times, every other issue I've ever had with this build has ultimately been loose RAM.

    Any suggestions on which is the most likely or possible other causes?

    If it's a failing GPU, I've been waiting to upgrade since just before prices started going insane, and now is getting better, so not the worst.

    Though if it's the PSU I might look at buying a new pre-build system rather than upgrading both. CPU is a Xeon 1230 so I'd probably be better off replacing the lot in one go than piecemeal over time.



Comments

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    #2
    minitrue
    Registered Users Posts: 739 ✭✭✭minitrue


    I'd try and rule out the monitor cable first and then the monitor itself by hooking it up to something else (or hooking the PC up to another monitor). Just seeing a "no signal" isn't really enough as the problem might be in the electronics which only trigger when it's actually working.

    Failing PSU or gpu isn't too unlikely at 9 years old. I'm not sure I'd go buying parts to narrowing it down though if you are already thinking about upgrading.

    A bad driver update is the thing you didn't mention. A Linux live system on usb _might_ be the easiest way to rule that out depending on how regularly the problem happens.



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