144hz monitor goes black in different applications

[yapi_door]

This is pretty much the weirdest problem I faced in my 15 years of experience with PCs.
So basically I got my gf quite a powerful pc, i5-8400, rtx 2060, 16gb ram (didn't plan to OC because she doesn't play that much of high grafics games). And a new monitor Acer KG1 KG251QF 144hz. The pc and the monitor don't have any problems overall, but at some times when let's say she starts a game from steam, it doesn't matter what game, the screen goes black and says "no signal". At the beginning I found the solution in unplugging the DP cable from the monitor and put it back, then we could see the picture, so I was quite positive that it is a cable problem.

The next day I found out that when the screen goes black, if I alt-tab, I can see the desktop whatsoever, go into the game -> "no signal" and black screen.

So the solution we have right now, that if this happens, we alt-tab, go to nvidia control panel -> change 144hz to 120hz, switch back to 144hz -> go back in the game and everything works. It takes 10 seconds to do, but it is very frustrating for my girlfriend, I tried to find any info in the internet, but there is no one who had this exact problem.

Important thing to notice: it happens every time with different games, example: one day we start "game1" and it goes black screen => after a while start "game2" and there is no problem, can see everything, next day it is the opposite, "game1" is fine, the "game2" is a black screen.

I thought that maybe it is a PSU problem, because motherboard has 8+4 CPU pin connector and our PSU only has 8-pin. But my personal PC has the same thing and everything works fine with better overclocked CPU and GPU. So if I can alt-tab and do the 144hz to 120hz and it works afterwards, I guess it is not the PSU, but I am not sure. We got 550w.

So I really hope someone can give me some advise what I can try to do to fix this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

P.S. I still didn't try another cable.

[UTFapolloMarine]

try a different monitor first attempt to see if its a monitor problem ok? and try the other cable too

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di POUusnavy:

try a different monitor first attempt to see if its a monitor problem ok? and try the other cable too

We have only this PC in her house, but I am planning to move mine next week here too, so I will have a monitor and another cable to try.
This is really strange, got everything updated, all drivers and everything. I hope can find a solution next week, I will post here again if I'll find out what's the problem

[UTFapolloMarine]

Messaggio originale di yapi_door:

Messaggio originale di POUusnavy:

try a different monitor first attempt to see if its a monitor problem ok? and try the other cable too

We have only this PC in her house, but I am planning to move mine next week here too, so I will have a monitor and another cable to try.
This is really strange, got everything updated, all drivers and everything. I hope can find a solution next week, I will post here again if I'll find the solution

okay good luck, be sure as well to plug into a brick not the wall and possible a psu failure good luck!

[Magma Dragoon]

Grasping at a straw here, probably just a bad cable or monitor, but
Devices and printers > display settings > advanced display settings > display adapter properties, monitor tab, is the screen refresh rate really set to 144hz?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Set OS and Games to both use sam3 screen res and at 144hz. As each, you os and games, are controlled seperately due to their options.

[Andrius227]

If switching to 120hz fixes it, why dont you just stick with it? Rtx 2060 could not push 144fps in most games anyway. And i dont think you would notice a difference between 120 and 144 hz anyway.

Also, i think the problem may be the connection of the dp cable at the computer end. I have had similar problems before. Eventually i discovered that the cable was not plugged in all the way. Its a bit hard to explain. Basically, there are thin strips of metal separating the slots at the back (on most pcs), but if a gpu takes 2 slots, one of those strips ends up right between all the video ports of the gpu, and it can block cables from going in all the way.

The solution for me was to unscrew the gpu and push it a bit up or down, to make more space for cables.

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di Magma Dragoon:

Grasping at a straw here, probably just a bad cable or monitor, but
Devices and printers > display settings > advanced display settings > display adapter properties, monitor tab, is the screen refresh rate really set to 144hz?

Yes it is set to 144hz there

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di Bad 💀 Motha:

Set OS and Games to both use sam3 screen res and at 144hz. As each, you os and games, are controlled seperately due to their options.

Tbh I don't know what do you mean and how to set both OS and Games to use sam3 screen res and at 144, can you explain more in detail what do you mean and how to do that?

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di Andrius227:

If switching to 120hz fixes it, why dont you just stick with it? Rtx 2060 could not push 144fps in most games anyway. And i dont think you would notice a difference between 120 and 144 hz anyway.

Also, i think the problem may be the connection of the dp cable at the computer end. I have had similar problems before. Eventually i discovered that the cable was not plugged in all the way. Its a bit hard to explain. Basically, there are thin strips of metal separating the slots at the back (on most pcs), but if a gpu takes 2 slots, one of those strips ends up right between all the video ports of the gpu, and it can block cables from going in all the way.

The solution for me was to unscrew the gpu and push it a bit up or down, to make more space for cables.

Ok, I'll keep it 120hz and check if it will be stable today. The cable is connected good to the GPU, but I will check once more later if 120hz will give the same problem

[Bad 💀 Motha]

When u load up each game, before you actually change its settings it has some sort of defaults, go into the game options and set it to the same screen res and refresh as your os desktop

[Magma Dragoon]

Swapping parts one at a time until the problem goes away is the only practical way to figure out where the problem is when there's hardware trouble, but that is also impractical without a second computer full of parts to swap out. A computer shop could probably do it for you.

Messaggio originale di Bad 💀 Motha:

When u load up each game, before you actually change its settings it has some sort of defaults, go into the game options and set it to the same screen res and refresh as your os desktop

He shouldn't have to do that though, the monitor shouldn't lose the signal when Windows hands control over the graphics device to the game even if the game changes resolution and refresh rate.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Again, try another dp cable.
Every dp cable I've gotten from asus or acer has had to be thrown out. I buy the 10ft dp male to male cables from amazon for approx $10

But overall do the ddu wipe firstly.

If switching to 120 hz some how solves all of these issues, then it's more then likely the cable or monitor itself that is your problem.

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di Andrius227:

If switching to 120hz fixes it, why dont you just stick with it? Rtx 2060 could not push 144fps in most games anyway. And i dont think you would notice a difference between 120 and 144 hz anyway.

Also, i think the problem may be the connection of the dp cable at the computer end. I have had similar problems before. Eventually i discovered that the cable was not plugged in all the way. Its a bit hard to explain. Basically, there are thin strips of metal separating the slots at the back (on most pcs), but if a gpu takes 2 slots, one of those strips ends up right between all the video ports of the gpu, and it can block cables from going in all the way.

The solution for me was to unscrew the gpu and push it a bit up or down, to make more space for cables.

Messaggio originale di Bad 💀 Motha:

Again, try another dp cable.
Every dp cable I've gotten from asus or acer has had to be thrown out. I buy the 10ft dp male to male cables from amazon for approx $10

But overall do the ddu wipe firstly.

If switching to 120 hz some how solves all of these issues, then it's more then likely the cable or monitor itself that is your problem.

No, 120hz doesn't help, the same thing. It's like I need to refresh HZ on the monitor and then everything works, and it doesn't matter if it is 60, 120, or 144 hz. And it's not only games, any application. Let's say I have the iCUE application for the lighting of the PC components, sometimes when I start it, have the same thing, black screen, so I need to alt-tab, change HZ that I have set to any other HZ, go back or keep it and everything is fine.

It seems that this happends every 3 to 4 hours, for example I start the pc, first application I start gives me black screen, then any application would be fine for 3-4 hours, and after this it happends again in a random application.

So I am positive that it should be something with the cable, I will get another one to try next week, I will let you guys know if another cable fix it.

[Nomaq]

Hey @yapi_door did you ever fix this issue? I am having the exact same issue

[yapi_door]

Messaggio originale di Zergy:

Hey @yapi_door did you ever fix this issue? I am having the exact same issue

Sorry for taking a while to asnwer! Yes we did fix it, but it's hard to remember what we did exactly. I am pretty sure I got new DP cable and the monitor had 2 inputs for the DP, so with the new cable I put it to the other input and since then didn't have any problems, so it was probably either a faulty DP or a broker input. Hope that helps!