Intermittent Black Screen Issues

[Zhain]

Relevant Part List
Storage 1: Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2 SSD
Motherboard: ASUS Z790-P Wifi
CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000X
GPU: NVIDIA 4090 FE (Driver ver. 551.86)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR5 6000 CL30
Monitor: innocn 27m2v (27 inch 4K Mini-LED) connected via DP (Primary)
Monitor: Dell S2716DG (Secondary) @ 1440p 60hz

CPU-Z validation: https://valid.x86.fr/n5z475

This started maybe a couple of months ago, but every so often, my monitor (only the primary, the 4K mini-LED) will go black for about a second, and then recover with none the worse for wear. No associated fan spinup from the 4090, no changes in load etc. It has happened in three games so far: Horizon Forbidden West PC port, Honkai Star Rail and FFXIV, seemingly at random. I can still hear the game audio while it happens.

I was wondering if it was a bandwidth/DSC thing so I reduced refresh to 120 Hz, capped FPS to ~117, and reduced color depth to 8-bit. That made it happen less often, but it still happens. I've tried messing with drivers, different DP cables, switching DP ports, reseating power cables, etc.

A little at my wit's end, as I'm already using this monitor at reduced capacity (should be able to run @ 4k 144hz 10-bit color depth no problem with DSC) and I'm not really sure what else to do. Considering how infrequently the issue occurs it's really hard to say if any particular change has fixed it or not.

[Zhain]

So I assume using this guy
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Certified-DisplayPort-FreeSync/dp/B0C15G6D81?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
would work fine, it would just be limited to DP 1.4 bandwidths since the card and monitor do not have DP 2.1.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

DP 1.4 is all we usually would need. Most GPUs do not support above this. Don't get that confused with HDMI 2.0a/b and 2.1

Most Monitors that have high refresh rely on doing that only through the DP

For TVs it differs, those you may need to plug into a certain HDMI port on the TV and enable PC Mode or Game Mode to get above 60Hz over HDMI 2.0 or 2.1

[Harry]

@

Originally posted by Zhain:

So I assume using this guy
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Certified-DisplayPort-FreeSync/dp/B0C15G6D81?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
would work fine, it would just be limited to DP 1.4 bandwidths since the card and monitor do not have DP 2.1.

Did you ever get this resolved? I'm having the same issue!

[_I_]

Originally posted by Harry:

@

Originally posted by Zhain:

So I assume using this guy
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Certified-DisplayPort-FreeSync/dp/B0C15G6D81?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
would work fine, it would just be limited to DP 1.4 bandwidths since the card and monitor do not have DP 2.1.

Did you ever get this resolved? I'm having the same issue!

try another monitor, and/or cable

in the monitors osd settings, turn backlight down to 75%
if that helps its a monitors backlight led that is dying

can also be game/driver crash

do you still get sound?
pc reboot or anything else?

what exactly happens when the screen goes black, what solves it?

[Illusion of Progress]

I'm surprised I didn't see this back when it was recent.

Look into your cable and environment, specifically if your display cable might be picking up EMI. I was dealing with this because carpet + chair with gas canister + adjusting clothing was causing the same thing to happen to me.

I had to get a DP cable with ferrite cores (or whatever they are called) on each end, which are surprisingly hard to find since VGA and DVI cables had these as pretty standard. I can't help but imagine that this might partly explain why issues of signal intermittently going out have been seemingly increased since HDMI/DP took over.

That's probably not the only thing that helped me though, as I found where I routed the cable mattered (I discovered this because before I got a new cable, I tried like three different ones, and the shortest one gave the best result, so i then tied the longer one up and it improved too). The new cable is shorter and doesn't hang as low behind my desk so try a twist tie or something if the cable is longer/hanging. It might be more unsightly hanging up near view but it's better than a display losing signal intermittently.

This was the particular cable I used. It came from a third party seller (it went fine for me) but these cables with ferrite cores seem hard to find from big brands for some reason.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFHQWFVL

Unfortunately, this may be easy to confuse as a GPU issue if it goes as it did for me (especially since I actually was also having a GPU issue at one time) because if it happens when you're doing something with 3D accelerated rendering (web browser, game, etc.), it may be interrupted, making you think the GPU is the cause of it when maybe it's not.

For example, if this happened while playing League of Legends, the monitor would not just go out and come back in, but the game would be minimized (but not crashed). If it happened while a hardware accelerated web browser was active, the web browser would often be entirely White until minimized/maximized or scrolled enough.

[_I_]

analog cables needed the ferrite cores to reduce interference
digital cables dont really need them unless they are unshielded
good hdmi, dp, dvi-d cables are shielded

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

My issue was power cycling/static discharging with both my same model ASUS monitors but after doing the "power cycle", they have not went black randomly since 2019 but my issue was model specific but other models/brands could be solved this way as well and the process is simple: unplug the power cable and hold down the power button for 15 seconds then replug in the monitor - I have been told it worked for an Acer model as well.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by _I_:

analog cables needed the ferrite cores to reduce interference
digital cables dont really need them unless they are unshielded
good hdmi, dp, dvi-d cables are shielded

No clue then.

I tried like a handful of HDMI and DP cables and every one of them had the issue of EMI impacting the signal. The shorter ones routed to not hang as low fared better, but still had the issue occur at random.

Even with the new cable I might be able to force if it I try, but otherwise it doesn't happen on its own anymore.

Not sure if I'm dealing with more EMI than normal (and if so, no clue why), but it helped me so it might be worth investigating if no other fixes work.

This whole experience even taught me that the previous random cutouts I had (once every two or three months so VERY rare) on DVI weren't because of my monitor like I thought. It was signal interference all along.