Page 1 of 2

Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 2:17 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
Hey guys! Sorry to come to you with another computer issue. I posted in this forum because I suspect its a GPU issue though I'm not sure.

Issue: I run a triple monitor setup and have a new computer build see bottom for specs. At any rate I'm having issues with the tripple screens flickering once or twice intermittently, sometimes every 30 seconds, but atleast once every 30 minutes. What happens is all the monitors Flip to a solid color or black for almost a solid second, almost like I have just plugged in a new Monitor and its registering it. At any rate the only new monitor on the array is the dell 30 inch 2560x1600. One monitor is being driven through a 7.1 sterio system via HDMI. Another issue I encounter is frequently the system won't see a monitor after a reboot or after a sleep. Also I can't seem to get this computer to drive my 60" 1080p monitor in my living room, even if its the only thing plugged in, it displays lines on screen or color saturation of only one color, like red. I think my GPU might be bogus, I orginally thought it was a win 8 bug but several updates on plus a lack of finding anything on google makes me thing I just have a bogus card.

System:
Processor, intel core i7 3770k @ stock settings
Memmory, 16 Gb DDR3
GPU 7950
Mobo AsusTeK P8z77-V LK

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:54 pm
by cynan
Sounds like a software (driver) issue, but I suppose it could be the card itself. I have an HD 7970 and sometimes on loading windows, I get a black screen off and on, as if the video card is having difficulty detecting the monitor. But it resolves itself after a minute or two. I'm not sure if this is specific to certain drivers or not. I suppose you haven't noticed a "display driver has stopped responding and has recovered" message when this happens?

I also have a Dell 30" (3007wfp-HC) that is now over two and a half year old. For the past 10 months or so, it has started acting flaky - though the issue is not that frequent. Every once in a while, I get random garbled images. Sometimes it only lasts for a few seconds, sometimes minutes. The issue on screen generally presents as a shadow suddenly appearing over a large portion of the screen, with some of the image appearing wavy - sort of like an old analog paper view cable channel that you didn't subscribe to but without the snow. This happens regardless of which computer it is connected to so I'm guessing the issue is the monitor - specifically the power inverter board, but I'm not sure.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:53 pm
by morphine
Can you post a detailed description of the monitors/equipment you have and how it's connected (via which ports, etc)?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:19 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
morphine wrote:
Can you post a detailed description of the monitors/equipment you have and how it's connected (via which ports, etc)?


Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP -DVI
Dell UltraSharp U3011 - Display port to mini display port
ASUS VW246H Glossy Black 24" - HDMI (through Onkyo HT-s5500 carrying 7.1)

I can unplug all the monitors and try to push a signal over a TESTED and proven cable to my Pioneer 7.1 on the other side of my wall and up to my LG plasma 60" and as stated before will put out a fuzzy or discolored image.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 7:13 pm
by morphine
This is probably obvious, but have you tried testing with only monitors 1 and 2, then 2 and 3, then 1 and 3, to see if it's one particular monitor interfering?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:26 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
morphine wrote:
This is probably obvious, but have you tried testing with only monitors 1 and 2, then 2 and 3, then 1 and 3, to see if it's one particular monitor interfering?


I've had a variety of issues regardless of how many or what monitors are plugged in. For example when trying to use my HT setup on the other side of the wall it didn't work and I tried unplugging all of the monitors in my study to see if it was a power draw thing, tried different cables. Just this week I got a warning about my Display port not being able to support my monitors resolution, didn't right it down, will next time I see it.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:14 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
Is there a way to role back drivers??? Are there new catalyst drivers on the way anytime soon???

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:25 pm
by mortifiedPenguin
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
Are there new catalyst drivers on the way anytime soon???
Have you tried the 13.2 Betas? Even if you have, they occasionally release new revisions of them so even if you're on 13.2 you might not be running the latest version (somebody correct me but I think they're on release... 2 or 3 by now).

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:33 pm
by davidm71
I have the same problem. Thats what happens when you mix displayport and dvi connections with eyefinity. Flickers like crazy. There is no fix short of turning on Vsync or getting an Nvidia based card as far as I know. Actually there is another. You could buy a displayport hub so that all your monitors run of the same connection. If anyone finds a fix I would like to know too. Not sure if this is fixable with a driver hotfix but if AMD could have they would have as I've been complaining about this for a year now..

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:40 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
I'd run a hub, but to do that I'd have to resolve this issue.

The only way to put out a 7.1 audio solution is to use HDMI. Correct me if I'm wrong but the only other cable, optical I believe is limited to 5.1. I have a 7.1 system, payed for it, want to benefit from using it. AMD doesn't allot you to put audio out over an HDMI w/o first sending video. So if I ever took a monitor off HDMI it wouldn't put out sound, unless I wanted to put out a replica signal but that could get messy cause then the comp would think it had 4 monitors... ok over thinking. At any rate to put all 3 monitors on display port, something I could conceivably do I'd need to resolve the audio issues. How should I do that???

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 3:47 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
ok so focusing on one thing. My computer when its plugged into my HT reciever for the Home Theater setup in the adjacent room puts out a video signal that produces a off color hue, as though the entire screen is bluer or greener than it should be. this is not an issue when displaying through the receiver that is used in my office with the computer, then after a while instead of an image problem audio stopped working but images were fine. I've tried 4 different cables, every port, every setting for the computer, reciever, or display nothing effects the issues I'm having. When the audio doesn't work the computer thinks its sending out a 7.1 signal over HDMI. I want to hammer this more limited and less challenging issue out before addressing my multi monitor problem. I need to know my GPU, or receiver isn't going bust.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 3:54 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
Went to beta 13.2 drivers, seems to have resolved some issues. Will have to see how reliable it really is over time. Will let you know if this does anything for the triple monitor display.

EDIT: got a bit hasty now its mute again and off color. hmmm. Based on the fact I can at least display on my 1080p monitor through a receiver in another instance I believe this receiver is junked. there is no reason for the audio not to work even if the TV is displaying off color. Being that I've literally tried every possible combination of cables I vote its the receiver. Annoying thing is the Xbox and PlayStation work perfectly no issue. Any thoughts as to why guys??? :-?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:11 pm
by auxy
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
Went to beta 13.2 drivers, seems to have resolved some issues. Will have to see how reliable it really is over time. Will let you know if this does anything for the triple monitor display.

EDIT: got a bit hasty now its mute again and off color. hmmm. Based on the fact I can at least display on my 1080p monitor through a receiver in another instance I believe this receiver is junked. there is no reason for the audio not to work even if the TV is displaying off color. Being that I've literally tried every possible combination of cables I vote its the receiver. Annoying thing is the Xbox and PlayStation work perfectly no issue. Any thoughts as to why guys??? :-?

It does seem like your problem is with the reciever. (°◇°;)

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:47 am
by kamikaziechameleon
So, that being said. addressing my separate issue in the screen flicker when using multiple monitors, would removing the DVI from the equation and going two display port monitors and one HDMI monitor kill the flicker. I've done the driver swap and that didn't resolve anything.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:21 pm
by auxy
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
So, that being said. addressing my separate issue in the screen flicker when using multiple monitors, would removing the DVI from the equation and going two display port monitors and one HDMI monitor kill the flicker. I've done the driver swap and that didn't resolve anything.
I honestly don't know. Sorry for the unhelpful response. It seems possible; HDMI and DVI both require a clock generator as part of the equation and it's possible your card doesn't like running two DVI signals (remember, HDMI is based on DVI) at once.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:27 pm
by ChronoReverse
Just curious. Are you overclocking (or even underclocking) by any chance?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:29 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
Everything is running at stock currently and has been since I built this rig.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:08 am
by kamikaziechameleon
Now atleast once a day my screen will freeze, and not unfreeze w/o a restart. Audio will work but nothing I do on the keyboard effects anything, ctrl alt delete is fruitless.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:55 am
by mortifiedPenguin
FWIW, 13.3 Beta is out now. Not really sure it'd fix anything at this point but it might be worth a try.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:29 pm
by Chrispy_
Screw the 7.1 for a couple of days.
Just plug your screens in directly and cope with stereo to see if the screens flicker without the Onkyo or Pioneer involved.

I would be inclined to suspect the receivers, but either you haven't tried eliminating them from the loop (even for testing purposes) or I've missed you mentioning it.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:35 pm
by mortifiedPenguin
Chrispy_ wrote:
I would be inclined to suspect the receivers, but either you haven't tried eliminating them from the loop (even for testing purposes) or I've missed you mentioning it.
Perhaps I'm not seeing something but how would the receivers be causing system instability?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 4:05 pm
by ryko
many receivers have inadeqaute hdmi hand-off solutions so it could definitely be the receiver. but i would look into what version of hdmi and dp you are using in your setup. i suspect that maybe a monitor and reciever want hdmi 1.4 and maybe your cables aren't up to spec? and what hdmi and dp versions do the 7950 output? or it could be that your new HR monitor is pushing too many pixels for your version of hdmi or dp? or are any of the monitors pushing more than 60hz? what is the total number of pixels in your 3 monitor setup? i just feel like you are exceeding the bandwidth of the cables or something...especially with the 7.1 audio on there too. i bet dropping down to 5.1 eliminates the stutter which points to too much bandwidth.

check it out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_comparison

also i noticed on my toshiba led tv that it doesn't deal well with an unusual resolution over hdmi. typically a computer monitor will gracefully tell you "out of range" or at least fall back to a default working resolution if you select something other than 1080p, but tvs sometimes don't handle things like this so well. i have had to hook my one of my htpcs to another working monitor and change res there before switching it back to my tv with the correct 1080p setting. note this was on an intel atom board so i blame intel's inferior video drivers more than my tv but still weird things can happen. you have to test one thing at a time and add things back to your setup slowly with only changing one variable at a time to figure it out. painstaking i know but you will get there.

anyway all of these type of complications is why i run hdmi to my tv for video from my htpc and then route audio over toslink separately to my receiver. let the receiver handle sound which is what it was designed for and let my htpc's videocard handle the video output---which is what it was designed for! but i am only using a 2.1 setup...too many wires to hide in a surround setup for my taste.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:14 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
Going direct into the monitor using headphones for time being will update if the issue is resolved.

update: didn't remove flicker.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 11:30 am
by kamikaziechameleon
It would appear that the issue is indeed HDMI related. This is annoying since I cannot put out 7.1 audio any other way than through HDMI unless you guys know of something clever that would work. Would a seperate bargain GPU solve this problem??? I know that Nvidia GPU's can do audio only no problem as that was my last GPU. This issue is becoming more prevelant. I've experienced some BSOD's on my system and don't know if they are related to the GPU issues, or my first SSD or win 8. About once a week my system locks up and won't recover without a hard boot.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 4:12 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
A developement is that the pc will occasionally freeze, or atleast the screen wil but if I'm playing music I can use keyboard commands to skip songs and stuff. This is getting strange. I mean yesterday the screen froze and I listened to music for another hour and NOTHING would bring it out of recovery.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 4:36 pm
by auxy
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
A developement is that the pc will occasionally freeze, or atleast the screen wil but if I'm playing music I can use keyboard commands to skip songs and stuff. This is getting strange. I mean yesterday the screen froze and I listened to music for another hour and NOTHING would bring it out of recovery.
It sounds to me like your GPU -- or at least the HDMI port on it -- is dying. I'd check everything else first -- check cables, check software (drivers and such), reseat the card in the PCIe slot, and so on. Have you tried using a DVI-HDMI cable?

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:27 pm
by kamikaziechameleon
auxy wrote:
Have you tried using a DVI-HDMI cable?


No, interesting idea. I'm annoyed that you can't use the onboard video ports for the integrated GPU when the Discrete GPU is installed. Else I could run the audio off that separate HDMI port and be done with the HDMI on my card.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 10:41 pm
by auxy
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
auxy wrote:
Have you tried using a DVI-HDMI cable?
No, interesting idea. I'm annoyed that you can't use the onboard video ports for the integrated GPU when the Discrete GPU is installed. Else I could run the audio off that separate HDMI port and be done with the HDMI on my card.
That would be a problem with your board, if you can't; I am doing that as we speak. My two VS229H-P monitors are run from my Intel HD 4000. I have 32GB of RAM, it's no skin off my back to shed one for the iGPU.

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 10:42 am
by kamikaziechameleon
auxy wrote:
kamikaziechameleon wrote:
auxy wrote:
Have you tried using a DVI-HDMI cable?
No, interesting idea. I'm annoyed that you can't use the onboard video ports for the integrated GPU when the Discrete GPU is installed. Else I could run the audio off that separate HDMI port and be done with the HDMI on my card.
That would be a problem with your board, if you can't; I am doing that as we speak. My two VS229H-P monitors are run from my Intel HD 4000. I have 32GB of RAM, it's no skin off my back to shed one for the iGPU.


Maybe I'm doing something wrong, how would I figure out how to run it???

Re: Screen flicker

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:06 am
by NeelyCam
The flicker with multiple monitors sounds like what I had a long time ago with 5870s. Driver updates didn't help; in the end I tracked it down to some sort of a weird sync issue with a power-save mode. If I remember right, I ended up manually tweaking the driver settings for power saving mode so that the voltage and/or frequency of the GPU was higher in power-save mode - that cleaned up the flicker (it seemed like the GPU running at low power messed up syncing between GPU and the monitor. (I don't remember exactly because it was such a long time ago... I might have disabled power save mode altogether).

Meanwhile, the crazy screen freezes (while sound works) and weird colors/flickers sounds like something I'm periodically having with my Onkyo receiver in the home theater, with various video sources (PS3/NUC/TiVo). That receiver just sometimes seems to go crazy. The only fix I've found is to unplug it for a few minutes (normal turn-off doesn't work - I really have to unplug the whole thing), and then it recovers. I haven't exactly figured out what causes this mess, but I think I've been able to make it happen more often if I turn on the projector after I turn on the receiver. Again, something to do with sync and handshaking between different parts of the system.

I don't have much advice for you, except 1) try disabling any powersave modes on your GPU drivers to see if that helps, and 2) unplug your receiver for 5min if display freezes, and see if that helps. You might be suffering from two (largely) separate issues. Connecting the monitor directly to the GPU might let you debug the flicker first, and then later figure out if the receiver is doing something bad