UPDATE, The Next Day: Turned on the PC this morning (it is running Linux Mint at the moment) and the left monitor (HDMI) was working normally. When I powered on the right monitor (DisplayPort, but different cable), it was flashing and not working, so same behavior as before. It eventually went dark after 5-10 minutes. I turned the monitor off, then back on again and it started up normally. This suggests the cable is either not the issue or I indeed have two bad DP cables. I may try going full HDMI before the end of the day to see what happens tomorrow.
For a while now, I have been experiencing some weirdness with my displays. I have two 27″ monitors, both the same model, connected as follows:
- PC: DisplayPort
- Mac: HDMI
The weirdness does not happen on the Mac, so it seems related to DisplayPort (DP) somehow (maybe), but the cause could be:
- Windows 11
- Bad DP cable
- Bad video card
- Bad monitor
So far, I have determined the following:
Windows 11Bad DP cable(maybe–see below)- Bad video card
- Bad monitor
Because the issue happens in Linux Mint, which is like the anti-Windows, it doesn’t seem to be an OS issue. What exactly is happening, you ask? Several things, each horrible in its own special way!
- The right monitor will sometimes glitch out after being turned on in the morning. The screen will flicker madly, and then sometimes lose signal altogether. If left alone, it eventually will start working normally. Usually rebooting the PC will also fix it.
- Sometimes both monitors will lose the DP signal entirely and just go blank. I don’t know if the signal recovers on its own in this situation, but some testing suggests that if it does, it takes longer than I’m willing to wait (hours, at least).
- Something I just noticed today: The DP and HDMI (to Mac) connectors on the back of the right monitor will get very warm, even hot, after a while. They remain cool (normal) on the left monitor. This, along with a dead pixel on the right monitor, leads me to think the right monitor is ailing, even if it isn’t the ultimate culprit.
Tonight I lost the DP signal on the left monitor, which is unusual, but it happened after swapping DP cables, so maybe there is a bad cable. I have cast the possibly bad DP cable aside, but don’t have a spare one that will reach to replace it, so right now the PC is connected with a combo of DP and HDMI. The DP cable that is now connected to the right monitor is the one previously connected to the left, so it may be good. Or “good.” But as noted above, I’ve sometimes lost signal on both monitors, which would mean two bad cables (theoretically possible) or, more likely, a bigger piece of hardware has gone awry. Or gremlins and gnomes are involved.
Anyway, I’ll see what happens, but for the moment both monitors are working and nothing seems to be getting super hot (yet). I will shut the monitors off when I go to bed and see what horrors await me in the morning when I turn them back on.
The best case scenario is that it is just a bad DP cable. The worst case is pretty much anything else, because both the monitor and video card would be very expensive to replace.
Computers are fun1They are! It’s actually rare for me to have hardware issues, so it’s especially annoying when they happen, particularly when the cause is uncertain..
