No signal: Screen goes black intermittently.

Hey there..

Just got back home after being on the road for a few months, and I’ve already got a mess waiting for me. My PC is totally dead.
Basically, it starts booting up, hits the Windows loading screen, and then the monitor just goes black.
I figured it was a Windows issue, but I tried resetting it and jumping straight into the BIOS, and the screen still blacks out after a few seconds.
It's like there's no connection at all.

I need some help ASAP. I'm heading back out on the road in a couple of days—I drive long-haul trucks—and I really need this rig up and running so I can handle my paperwork.

Thanks 👍

It could be an issue with either your graphics card or the monitor itself.
Do you happen to have integrated graphics available so you can try connecting directly to those?
You should also try plugging someone else's monitor into your PC, or vice versa, just to rule things out.

I've got integrated graphics on my motherboard. Or at least, I think I do. The board is an ASRock 960GC-GS FX.

How do I switch from this dedicated card over to the integrated one? Besides just moving the cable, what else am I looking at?

Just take the cable running from the monitor, unplug it from the GPU, and plug it directly into the blue VGA port on the motherboard; that should do the trick. If that doesn't work, you might need to enable the integrated graphics in your BIOS—look for terms like iGPU, onboard graphics, or integrated graphics.

EDIT

In the BIOS menu, navigate to the "Advanced" tab, then locate the "Primary Graphics Adapter" setting and switch it over to "onboard."

edit 2

Once you've made that change, make sure to save and exit (usually by hitting F10, but the screen will tell you exactly what to press).

Nothing. Now the monitor won't even turn on at all. Usually, when everything's running right and it's plugged into the GPU, that blue light stays steady. But now? I switched it over to the integrated graphics and all I get is a yellow light, then total silence. Nothing happens.

Try configuring those BIOS settings I mentioned above first while you're running exclusively on the dedicated GPU, then go ahead and disable the integrated graphics after that.

I can't deal with this—my monitor blacks out for a few seconds every single time I try to enter the BIOS.

Man, I’m worried the issue might actually be the monitor itself. I saw a neighbor deal with this exact same glitch—it stays on for just a few seconds before cutting out entirely (he ended up returning it and getting a replacement). Just to be absolutely certain, try plugging that monitor into a different PC or laptop, or conversely, try hooking someone else's monitor up to your computer. It's just basic troubleshooting by process of elimination.

Typing this from my laptop. Is there any way I can actually pull this off using this thing?

Just hook the monitor directly into the VGA port on your laptop (that same blue one)

There you go. It projected the image from my laptop onto the monitor for a few seconds, then everything just went black.

Your monitor died—specifically the power supply, likely the inverter... If you’re looking to fix it yourself, try searching eBay for the specific power board model number for your monitor. It should cost about $67... That is, if you're lucky enough that your monitor uses two separate boards: one for power and another for the actual display logic. This works for LCD monitors, but if you're dealing with an old CRT... that's a whole different story. It's still probably the power supply... but everything is integrated onto a single board. At that point, ordering parts from eBay probably isn't worth it; you're better off just taking it to a local repair shop somewhere...

The monitor is a Dell UltraSharp

Think a local shop could handle this? There's a TV repair place right down the street from me. Might just swing by and see if they can fix it.

Give it a shot, you've got nothing to lose.

I grabbed another 26-inch TV and swapped it onto my desk where the monitor used to be. I'm not even bothering to fix this one. The TV's better and the resolution is identical.

Christian Mendoza60 said:I grabbed a spare 26-inch TV and slapped it on my desk instead of using a monitor. No point fixing the old one. The TV's better and the resolution is identical.

👍 Genius move right there 😁