• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

SOLVED Random flashing black screen

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

mammut

Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2002
Location
northern Europe
son's rig has developed a problem, specs:

Asus M4A77T, latest BIOS
Phenom II X4 850
2x4GB Kingston Hyper-X red DDR3 1600MHz/1.65V
660GTX
Corsair CX600
Philips 24in FullHD, HDMI
Neovo F-419 DVI
Win 7 64bit

CnQ set to auto.

Problem, random intermittent flashing black screen(less than 1sec) in HDMI display. Does this even while in BIOS.
Simultaneous DVI Display works OK (dual screen set up).:confused:

Changed: PSU, gfx card, upped vdimm(1.65V), clear CMOS, different dual channel slots, tested another HDMI display(same model).

Fault remains, without change.

Leads me to think the motherboard is faulty, or the EPU feature that can not be disabled, somehow messes up the system.
The board is about one year old.

Do you have some suggestion how I can troubleshoot this further, do not have a spare board to test with.
Was thinking of trying to disable all energy related stuff in BIOS, but need a method to walk through.

Have also a spare set of generic to 1333MHz RAM to test with, but seems far fetched, no?
 
Have you tried connecting to the Philips display with a non-HDMI cable to see if the issue is still present?
 
The display has dual HDMI and one VGA. The GTX660 does not have VGA. Tried a bit with HDMIxVGA adapter, but the screen res came up 640x800 and did not feel like tinker with that any further. The other HDMI display I swapped with seem to work just ok with another rig.
 
Update:

For a split second could notice a line across screen when the harddisk made a sudden bigger transfer, at random, not
related to the black screen flashing. uh-oh I thought, this could be it. :snipe:

The one thing have not tried to swap, the original HDMI cable that came with the display.
Had a spare HDMI cable lying around and hooked up that one.
So far it looks good, no screen flashes.:burn:

Quite obvious now in hindsight. The HDMI is a high bandwidth connection and sensitive to disturbances, thus quality
and condition is of utmost importance. Possibly some manufacture defect that has grown worse with handling the cable
and eventually showed up as display dropping the signal intermittently.
Also explains why the 2nd display DVI works OK all times. :escape:
 
Back