Monitor Woes :(

[Thilly]

Hello everyone,

Starting today, my monitor won't come out of power save mode on bootup from a shut down or restarted system. I thought maybe it was my video card to blame, but I tried another monitor first... and it worked!

To check to see if maybe it was my DVI cable causing the problem, after booting up with the alternate monitor and getting to the desktop, I unplugged that monitor and plugged in the trouble monitor... which then "woke up" and started working again.

I checked to see if it was a fluke error and turned off my pc, and turned it back on... monitor won't initialize.

The problem seems to be only existent coming from a powered off mode. Anyone ever heard of this sort of thing? Is it my monitor? Videocard? DVI cable?

Any help would be extremely appreciated. I don't know if it makes a difference, but here are my pc specs which may play a role in this process.

AMD Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.6 on air
8gb gskill @ 800mhz (**** you AMD memory controllers)
ati hd 4870 1gb

The monitor is a hanns-g 19", JC199D

 

[KSoD]

That sounds like the monitor is going. If you can only get it to power up when you are already at a desktop and connecting the monitor i would say that it has a issue knowing when the system has become active.

I would contact Hanns and see if they have any information about this problem.

 

[Thilly]

I have an update on a monitor situation. Not the same one, and not the same problem, but figured I'd just use this thread instead of making a new one.

I really hate to admit to this after tooting my horn over ATI's Catalyst drivers... but I wonder if they are to blame.

Here's the info:

Just got a new monitor after the old one began going out, I went with one of newegg's nice 4th of july sale monitors and ended up with a 25" Hanns G H251. A very nice looking monitor for 200 shipped, to be honest. Was surprised. 1920x1080.

The problem I am having is in over half of the games I have tested it on, a box appears in the middle of the screen with the message "Input Signal is Out of Range." Furthermore, in half of the games that DO work correctly, once I exit the game, I come back to a "shrunken" desktop, with an inch thick band around the edges.

From what I understand, this signal appears when trying to run a monitor on settings outside of its capabilities, but I have done anything I know possible to ensure that it is running at 60hz, and 1920x1080.

I uninstalled the monitor's drivers and tried the generic PnP driver, but that made it worse, so I reinstalled the hanns g driver. I attempted to uninstall catalyst 9.4 so I can install 9.6 in hopes of a fix, but this is where I hit the wall. I get an error trying to open to catalyst uninstall manager.

This is the error I get:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: InstallManagerApp.exe
Application Version: 3.0.719.0
Application Timestamp: 49c04d94
Fault Module Name: MFC80U.DLL
Fault Module Version: 8.0.50727.1833
Fault Module Timestamp: 482bb4a2
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00000000000854ee
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: bfef
Additional Information 2: e8adce1c2b9e7be834b4063ac3c53863
Additional Information 3: bfef
Additional Information 4: e8adce1c2b9e7be834b4063ac3c53863
--------

Using vista 64

Another note:

After exiting one of the games that did not work correctly (Trine), I noticed in both the windows display and CCC that the refresh rate of my display had been automatically changed to 50hz. Could this be something caused solely by the games and not my catalyst drivers?


Sorry for the long post but wanted to be thorough.

 

[KSoD]

The installer for the Catalyst Drivers is crashing and not responding. So yoru best bet at this point. Try using the Device Manager to remove the drivers. See if it is possible to remove them from there and then install the new ones.

 

[Thilly]

Going through the device manager just opens up the catalyst installer, can't just use windows to do it unfortunately.

 

[KSoD]

Boot into Safe Mode and try from there.

 

[Thilly]

My bad, should have mentioned that in my post. I tried safe mode and windows said it couldn't use install manager in safe mode. =[


EDIT/UPDATE:

After some google digging I have discovered this hotfix by microsoft

FIX: An application that uses the Mfc80.dll module or the Mfc80u.dll module crashes after you install a product that updates the module version

Apparently there is some sort of issue with their VC++ Dist and various applications. I'm sort of afraid of what extra curricular errors this may cause, but so far it has allowed me to get into the Catalyst install manager. Will update again if I run into more problems, and let you know whether the original issue with the monitor's input out of range thing is resolved. Thanks as always for your time Mak.


UPDATE 2:

Installed new catalyst drivers, no more "signal out of range" issue, although there is the black band around the screen if I try to run 1080@60hz. Dropping it down to 59hz for whatever reason fills up the rest of the screen space... sigh. I imagine this will cause problems in games that have refresh rate setting in their own gui and don't support 59hz exactly.

Any ideas why this might be happening? Maybe just a bad monitor? I can't find anyone on google with the same problem on this monitor.

 

[KSoD]

Sounds like the drivers cant handle your refresh rate. I would check the ATi site for known issues or bugs with the current driver set.

 

[Thilly]

Alright some more info just in case someone browses here with a similar problem.

Resolution issue since patch - Steam Users' Forums

This is one of the games I am having the issue with, and it looks like they made the game to automatically change your refresh rate when it starts, causing the issue with this monitor/driver/whatever. A mod there posted a solution for this particular game in which you edit a config file to force your refresh rate. I imagine a similar solution is possible with many games.

I made a post on the AMD forums, no replies yet, but if anyone would like to follow it here it is:

AMD Game Forums - Resolution issues, hd4870 on hannsg h251


Good luck to anyone else experiencing this, it's way too much fun.