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This = The Weirdest Graphics Card Problem Ever

Associate
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23 Oct 2002
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That London, née Brighton
I'm having a rather complex issue with a couple monitors (ViewSonic 19" jobbies, couple years old) jacked into my new HD4870 dual DVI. Apologies for the length of this but, as you'll see, it really is an odd one and needs a proper explanation.

Backstory: my old GPU (Ati x1900xtx) was running at 105 degrees C under load, so I took it out of the PC, blew the dust out of it, put it back, temps were fine but suddenly had a weird problem with my monitors (described in lower paragraph), put it down to a static charge from handling/blowing the GPU semi-breaking a component (had a similar issue with a PSU several years back), tried to flash the GPU BIOS, flash utility didn't work, bricked the GPU, bought a new Ati HD4870, plugged everything in, monitor problem had vanished!

Until today, that is, about 3 weeks and several reboots later. Whilst un-installing and re-installing an external soundcard the monitor problem has come back. Given that it's now happened across two graphics cards I don't think it's the cards, and I bricked my old one for no reason, grr. (Altho, nerdcraft runs at max settings at 1280x1024 on this so it's kind of a bonus. Anyway...)

Problem: One of the monitors won't display the desktop when it's in "use both monitors independently as separate desktops" mode, but only sometimes. If it's in "mirror the same desktop on both monitors" it always displays something, but as soon as I go into "separate desktops" mode... it breaks. And by breaks I mean, windows still renders the 'other' desktop, it still exists, just the monitor goes into some weird mode where the power light blinks and it goes blank (not the same as its normal 'no power' standby mode). The mouse can still be moved onto the 'hidden' monitor and, with a bit of lucky clicking and dragging, programs that were open 'fished' back onto the one that's still displaying stuff. Windows still knows the blank monitor's there too as I get the familiar "device added/removed" noise if I yank the DVI out. Given that it's worked ok for the last three weeks in "separate" mode... and the problem coming back today was triggered by me messing about with uninstalling stuff (aforementioned external sound card)... despite it only affecting one phyiscal monitor (comfirmed to an absolute degree by hours of swapping cables and spare monitors around (sadly my spares are too slow and blur visibly in games)) I think it's a software issue, somehow, rather than the monitor. Because, surely the signal that gets sent to the monitor in "mirror" mode is the same as in "separate" mode, right? Just 1280x1024 pixel colour values? So the monitor itself (I theorise/hope) is fine but there's some residual broken stuff in windows somewhere.

Finally, The Question: anyone got a clue what I can do/try here? What can I do to remove every last trace of this particular physical monitor from windows (registry, drivers, etc)?

Thanks for bearing with me on that :)
 
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Associate
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Wales.
Have you tried changing the monitor modes via CCC, or is that what you are doing at the moment?

Have you got Catalyst 9.3 installed?
 
Soldato
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Whats the res of the other monitor? It might be outputting to your separate monitor a res it cant handle. If you mirror it it will be running at the same res as the primary one (i think)
Cant really think this is the problem since it worked the last few weeks, but worth a shot.
 
Associate
OP
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Nice idea, but both 19" and at their native 1280x1024x32 so it's not that. Annoyingly they're working again now, for no reason.

I remember ages ago there was a utility called detonator destroyer for removing every last trace of nvidia's drivers, are there any similar tools for arbitrary pieces of hardware/drivers? I think that's what I'm looking for, maybe
 
Soldato
Joined
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2,524
The mouse can still be moved onto the 'hidden' monitor and, with a bit of lucky clicking and dragging, programs that were open 'fished' back onto the one that's still displaying stuff
Tip :
If you just right click the taskbar button for the app that's on the wrong monitor, and go to 'Move', you can use your keyboard arrow keys to move the window back across.

Can you test what happens if you switch which monitor is your primary?
 
Associate
OP
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That London, née Brighton
Tip :
If you just right click the taskbar button for the app that's on the wrong monitor, and go to 'Move', you can use your keyboard arrow keys to move the window back across.

Can you test what happens if you switch which monitor is your primary?

A program called Ultramon means there's a separate taskbar for each monitor, so sadly not possible.

Switching primary also caused strange happenings. With one as the primary it'd work but then switching would cause it to break again.
 
Associate
OP
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That London, née Brighton
Well, it's happened again! I left the PC to go watch The Apprentice (on which note, how stereotypical does that estate agent guy want to be?!), screen saver came on, monitors went into low power mode as normal, returned to it an hour later and... oh... only one monitor has come back :/

This is despite the on->screensaver->power-down->on-again cycle having been repeated several times the last few days with no issues at all.

I've now tried killing Ultramon and using Driver Sweeper, but nothing seems to have any impact :(

Think maybe it's time to check if my monitor has a warranty. Isn't looking like being software related... although it doesn't make sense being the monitor either, but I've tried all the software things I can. Puffincat he say meh.

._.

And CCC 9.3 still won't load ._.
 
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