[Solved] Solid Light Blue Screen on VR Display

[AmnesiacBear]

Hi, I need some help

I tried setting up my friend's old Vive, which I know to be working on his setup, and I can't see anything but a light blue/cyan screen on the display when I start SteamVR. The same thing is shown on the "VR View" for Steam VR on my monitor.

I plugged in my friends Index to see if it was just the Vive, but the SAME issue occurs with that too

I started up a game, and everything seems to be working except the display and audio on the headset. The headset is tracking, I can see the first-person view move on-screen as I move the headset around

The vive and index use completely different cables and hardware to connect, so I know it's not a bad hdmi cable or anything. The base stations are Green and tracking. I've made sure to plug into USB 3.0 port on my mobo. My graphics card is a GTX 1080 (edit. already updated graphics drivers)

Anyone encounter this or have any ideas how to troubleshoot?

Thanks

[BOLL]

The light blue screen I only ever experienced when I ran my Vive wireless, so that's... interesting. That happened to me when the adapter would overheat, which it did regularly, but I
m still not sure what it actually means. Bad image signal? Who knows. The usual problem is a gray screen which means loss of tracking.

For the Vive I'd try to plug it into USB2, as that's all it needs and for the longest time was way more stable on for most motherboards. It's a super old recommendation, and not really for this issue... I presume there is no error code in the SteamVR status window?

[AmnesiacBear]

Originally posted by BOLL:

The light blue screen I only ever experienced when I ran my Vive wireless, so that's... interesting. That happened to me when the adapter would overheat, which it did regularly, but I
m still not sure what it actually means. Bad image signal? Who knows. The usual problem is a gray screen which means loss of tracking.

For the Vive I'd try to plug it into USB2, as that's all it needs and for the longest time was way more stable on for most motherboards. It's a super old recommendation, and not really for this issue... I presume there is no error code in the SteamVR status window?

Unfortunately none, according to the SteamVR Status window there's no issues. I assume it's something weird on my computer's side, since it's happening on both Vive and Index that are known to be working on another setup.

The blue screen only shows when the display *should* be showing something, i.e. it goes to black blank screen when I put the headset down, and the blue screen shows up when I "wake" the headset by picking it up. So it's definitely responding to input from the computer

[BOLL]

You're not using any extension cables or anything? Thinking the signal might be too weak from the GPU, but if you're using a link box it feels like it should be fine 😬 Do you have more ports on your GPU to try with? Or a DP to miniDP cable to use instead of HDMIl?

[AmnesiacBear]

No extension cables, just a regular link box. I don't have a miniDP/DP cable to try with the vive, but the Index runs through DP while the Vive use HDMI, and both are displaying the same light blue/cyan so I don't think it's a port issue.

I'm about to set it up in a different location to see if there's some environmental anomaly...

[AmnesiacBear]

Update: Tried it out in my room using the same ports and everything... and it just works? I'm going to bring it BACK downstairs, to see if it's really just my basement being weird...

[BOLL]

Would your basement happen to have many chromed ducts or other shiny things? That would usually mean a gray screen and/or bad tracking and not this blue one though... 🤔 Curious.

[Jayy_Wilson]

I have this problem too think your graphics card is weak

[Jayy_Wilson]

or a bad usb plug

[AmnesiacBear]

So I finally did figure this out, in case anyone runs into the same thing. I was using Windows Remote Desktop to connect to my PC so I could run it "headless", and somehow that messed with the audio and video output so it wasn't able to show up on the vive.

When I start steamvr automatically on boot with no RDP connection, everything is good thanks for responding @BOLL

[BOLL]

Oh, that little detail eh 😅 Thanks for sharing the solution, always good to know what solved a weird issue 😁

[El Duce]

I had this same problem with virtual desktop, thanks for the solution. TeamViewer does't have this problem but there sometimes the desktop doesn't render at all when you don't have a hardware display emulator dongle plugged in. Super frustrating, might have to buy one of those.

[KyleZ]

Originally posted by AmnesiacBear:

So I finally did figure this out, in case anyone runs into the same thing. I was using Windows Remote Desktop to connect to my PC so I could run it "headless", and somehow that messed with the audio and video output so it wasn't able to show up on the vive.

When I start steamvr automatically on boot with no RDP connection, everything is good thanks for responding @BOLL

Thanks! this was driving me crazy. I have my Vive in a different room from my computer and was using Splashtop remote desktop to save walking back and forth and could not figure out why I had the blue screen. Closed the remote desktop, and everything works great again

[миленькоbandit.gg]

Ummm, as far as it is easy to go back to win10 I am thinking I would have a try with this win11.