Windows 7 nvidia gtx 460 strobe effect when monitor "wakes up"

soureel

New Member
I recently purchased an Nvidia gtx 460 graphics card. Works great but when the monitor "wakes up" after a long period of time (typically when the computer has been sitting overnight), but the monitor image strobes repeatedly and will do so until I have opened at least one new program (which visually can be hard to do with the screen strobing). At that point the strobing rate slows down and stops within about 10 seconds. I haven't actually waited to see if it would continue to strobe indefinitely if I didn't try to open new programs. I'm guessing this has something do to with Windows power savings settings.
 
Hi.

Install the latest video card driver, chipset drivers and bios for the motherboard, and monitor(s) driver(s) from the manufacturer(s).

Video card driver >>> Link Removed - Invalid URL
 
Sounds very much like blown capacitors in the monitor, which is a relatively common issue.

Capacitors generally store power and regulate it. When one or more are bad, it will take a much much greater amount of time for the device to work well, if it ever does at all.

A quick question: When the monitor is completely disconnected from the power source for a long time, then plugged and turned on WHILE THE PC IS NOT HIBERNATING NOR SLEEPING, does the issue still exist?

If so = blown caps.

If not = probably not.
 
Ummmm... do you have a different monitor you can connect?

It might actually be your monitor that's strobing. Some LCD-TFT monitors will flicker quite noticeably when the backlight is first turned on. It's not a fault, just an eccentricity of the design.

If switching monitors stops it, you know it's the monitor (and nothing to worry about).

If it still does it on the other monitor, you just might have a defective video card.
 
Actually capacitors block DC and pass AC... they neither store nor regulate power... but that's a whole different discussion.

Your test is valid... if a monitor is going to flicker, that will do it... but a lot of monitors do this natively, because the flourescent backlight isn't starting instantly. It's not really a fault... In my experience monitors that flicker like that can last longer than ones that don't (less power to the backlight).
 
Actually capacitors block DC and pass AC... they neither store nor regulate power... but that's a whole different discussion.

Your test is valid... if a monitor is going to flicker, that will do it... but a lot of monitors do this natively, because the flourescent backlight isn't starting instantly. It's not really a fault... In my experience monitors that flicker like that can last longer than ones that don't (less power to the backlight).

Yes, they very much do regulate. They allow for a smooth delivery of current whereas without them, the resulting voltage readings would be erratic. A typical use of them is on motherboards to ensure voltages are kept constant and consistent to the cpu. Or in power supply units to ensure non-erratic, within-spec output.

I have the ability to design and repair circuits at the component level, with experience since a young kid.

They also very much do store power. They are the reason why you can be seriously injured or worse when opening a crt type monitor without it plugged in. They are also the reason why it doesn't take longer than a week to turn on your tv.
 
Yes, they very much do regulate. They allow for a smooth delivery of current whereas without them, the resulting voltage readings would be erratic. A typical use of them is on motherboards to ensure voltages are kept constant and consistent to the cpu. Or in power supply units to ensure non-erratic, within-spec output.


Ok... you win.

You're wrong... but I just don't want to argue.

(Hint: I may have learned a few things during my 35 years as a design level electronics technologist)
 
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Ok... you win.

You're wrong... but I just don't want to argue.

Perhaps this will help your understandings then:

"Motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board."

Motherboard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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"At issue are faulty capacitors on motherboards that store power and regulate voltage."

PCs plagued by bad capacitors - CNET News


If you Google, you can find millions of comparable links and phrases.

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This will help you understand the energy storage capabilities on a more technical level:

Link Removed due to 404 Error
 
I hear that. It's just slightly frustrating to watch posts about how the Ultimate version of Windows 7 has extra code that diminishes the stability, how mulitmedia under Windows 7 is subpar, how someone that was having a physical video card issue would benefit by installing an old driver in a crash dump thread (http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-graphics/47551-display-randomly-freezes-distorts-5.html), amongst being told that my posts are factually wrong in technical terms when that is not true.

It all combines to devalue the site in my honest opinion. I spend lots of time making factual posts. It's nothing personal towards you that I wish for a high degree of technical correctness on here.

It's all in the name of technical integrity and professionalism.
 
Alright, you want technical integrity and professionalism...

1) I did in fact have problems with Windows 7 Ultimate. I can't give you the itty bitty details because I don't have the source code to examine.

2) Multimedia performance on Win7 is sub-par. There is a procedure call queue in the windows kernel. These are "delayed procedure calls" for code running in non-realtime priority. It takes time to process these procdures and that time affects performance. Multimedia is the most time critical function in home computers... It is handled in the DPC Queue. Thus the greater the "latency" on the DPC queue the more likely multimedia is to run into trouble with audio/video mistiming, buffer underruns etc... With me so far? Now Win7 also runs considerable background tasks some of which do produce spikes in that latency timing due to function calls not releasing processor time... which does affect multimedia performance. In Win7 DPC Latency is running an average of 200us where as on XP and 2000 it ran about 17 to 20us. Guess which OS is most likely to burble or drop frames... Link Removed due to 404 Error

3) The recommendation to install an older version of NVidia's drivers came from NVidia itself. Lots of people were having video driver issues, NVidia even stepped up and admitted there were problems with it's drivers posting a short-lived notice on their website about it and suggested that people should try older versions if they had problems until they got it fixed. "Newer" absolutely does not translate to "Better" and quite often it can amount to the introduction of new bugs.

4) About capacitors... My friend, capacitors be they ceramic, electrolytic, mylar or air dielectric all do exactly the same thing... they store a small charge. The capacitor DOES NOT supply current or regulate voltages... it simply acquires and releases parts of it's charge in relation to the voltages applied. When used in shunt mode (as in a power supply) this effect can be used to smooth ripple out of a DC power source. But this is a millisecond to millisecond effect which has little or no actual impact on voltage regulation... That is the job of voltage regulators, made up of active components that monitor the supply voltage and adjust themselves accordingly. I guarantee that if you stick a voltmeter probe on a motherboard and you get erratic voltage readings it's going to be a bad voltage regulator... not a bad capacitor. However; it is indeed possible that a bad voltage regulator could damage the capacitors on a motherboard. Replacing the capacitors without fixing the regulator is as dull minded as replacing a fuse without fixing the short. Electric fields and capacitance : CAPACITORS

My friend, I'm 59 years old. Judging from your account image (if that's really you) I'd put you in your late 20s... This means I was probably designing and repairing electronic devices 10 years before you were born. I started in electronics as a hobby in my teens, turned it into a career in my mid-20s and have worked in one aspect or another of the industry ever since. My "bragging rights" range from pro-audio to industrial control to robotics to computers and beyond. I've designed hundreds of working electronics systems over the years. I've also trained dozens of technicians, taking in apprentices whenever my career would permit. My last gig was as the national service manager for a major electronics firm...

Now I will give you very high marks. You know a lot of stuff and you're certainly very good at helping people with most problems.

However, at some point every good technician (or engineer) is humbled by the discovery of just how much they don't know. Usually resulting in the realization that what they don't know is more important than what they do... When that moment comes generally the first thing to be understood is that cut and dry answers centering around shallow beliefs such as "Newer is Better" or "This happened last time so it must be the case this time" just don't carry the day. We all learn a new mode of thinking based upon investigation, not platitudes.

I employed a guy once, most productive repair tech I've ever seen... Dude couldn't even solve Ohm's law. But he knew that and governed himself accordingly. When he got stuck he was unafraid of taking advice or asking for help... A lesson most of today's "techie" types never learn.

Sooooo... since this appears to be a point of friction with us. I will bit you adeiu. I came here intitially hoping for a solution to a problem I've yet to solve (you, know, the part about being unafraid to ask for help) and stuck around to repay everyone's kindness by providing answers to some of the stuff I do know... Alas, my welcome seems worn, so we can just leave it at that.
 
OK, getting back to my original problem, here's some additional information.

I've had the monitor for a couple of years. No problems of any kind until this flicker issue came up a couple of weeks ago. This problem "sorta" coincided with the installation of the GTX 460. I think the card was installed for about a week before the problem started.

Config 1: computer is set to never go to sleep; display is set to turn off after 10 minutes. If 15 to 20 minutes pass, the monitor turns back on with no problem. If several hours have passed, the monitor will continue flickering for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes when it wakes up. Then it seems to settle itself out and I have no problems with the monitor, regardless of how long it stays on.

Config 2: I turned the monitor and computer completely off last night, and did a cold boot this morning. The flickering was immediately apparent when the boot/bios screen came up and continued for several minutes after Windows loaded and I logged on to the computer.

Is it possible the Nvidia card is the culprit here?
 
Anything is possible until indisputably proven not.

99% chance you have blown capacitors in the monitor or cold solder joints where they connect to the pcb. If you like getting into projects, from a hobby perspective, replace the leaking/blown caps in the monitor with low esr type, same value replacements os original.

If you'd like to simply fix the issue, purchase a new monitor. As a safety net, you might borrow a monitor from a friend to test that the monitor is in fact the culprit, before spending money.

Almost sure of it though, based on your description of how it behaves.
 
Thanks for the advice. There are a couple of surplus monitors around the office. I'll try one of those out.

Here's one other possible clue to what might have happened. About a month ago, my computer experienced a power surge related to a nearby lightning strike. It fried my motherboard, RAM, video card, and router. About the only things that it did not appear to affect were my monitor and hard drive. Do you think this gradual showing of my problem could be related to that? I thought that if the monitor was affected by the surge, it would have had problems immediately, but as I said earlier, the flicker problem didn't crop up for a couple of weeks.
 
It makes sense to me. Regardless of cause, the symptoms lend themselves to being failing capacitors or cold solder joints involving them.

It's definitely possible that a surge in voltage or any extreme power spike could damage components, like you've had.

An alternate monitor used as a test is not going to exhibit the same problem. It's practically guaranteed.

Try and hope for positive results. :)
 
I had the exact same thing happening on my monitor for the last 3 weeks, finally got fed up and rang Samsung UK this morning and they arranged a next day courier replacement on warranty with only 5 days left of my 3 year warranty... and the warranty guy said blown capacitor is almost certainly the issue...thanks for the good diagnosis there TorrentG.

All I can say is I'm giving 10/10 to Samsung UK's customer service for that.

My monitor started off with strobe and very dull on turning on, over a 3 week period that went from taking 20 seconds to power up and stop strobing to a huge 2 minutes!
 
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Very cool, especially with only 5 days remaining! Thanks for letting us know about it.

On a side note, a few days ago I sent Common a pm saying that I hope to see more posts in the future from him.

As I was saying above, it definitely and absolutely is never a personal issue I have whenever someone is disagreeable with me. All my "arguments" are intended in a kind nature. That being said, when I am sure that something I'm saying is technically correct, it's my personal integrity that causes me to stand my ground on it. I wouldn't want members or others that happened upon a thread trying to fix their problems to be misled.

I've been on the net a long time. Have I been corrected before? Of course! That's how I learn. :)
 
Well, the end of the story for me is that I have no doubt it was the monitor at fault. The flicker even occurred with I completely disconnected the monitor from the computer and just plugged the power cord into a wall socket. The small color bar which appears when the monitor is disconnected from the computer flickered for about 5 minutes before finally stabilizing. I've been running the monitor on "never sleep" mode since. New Monitor (Dell 23" SP2309W ) should be arriving today. Too bad my Samsung was out of warranty.
 
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