For the past few months, my PC has been having serious display problems. My GTX 1050 loses the signal intermittently when connected through HDMI or DisplayPort—sometimes the screen flickers, then goes completely black for several seconds or even minutes. The card works normally through DVI, and a DVI-to-VGA adapter also works without issues. I have seen similar behavior with both a GTX 1080 Ti and an RTX 3070, while the 3070 also occasionally shuts down unexpectedly. The case has good airflow and the power supply is a 750W Gold-rated unit. I have already reset the GPUs several times, and the problem occurs with multiple monitors. What hardware or troubleshooting steps should I check next?
2 Answers
The fact that DVI works while HDMI and DisplayPort lose signal points toward the digital-output path: cables, monitor inputs, motherboard power delivery, or the PCIe connection. Try one certified cable at a time, disable high refresh rate or adaptive sync, and test at a basic resolution. If the PC itself is also shutting down, prioritize checking PSU voltage stability and motherboard problems rather than focusing only on display drivers.
Since the same behavior has happened with three different graphics cards, I’d start looking at the parts they share rather than assuming all three GPUs are bad. Test the PCIe slot, reseat or replace the RAM, and check the power supply and its PCIe cables. If your motherboard has another full-length PCIe slot, try the card there as well. Also test HDMI and DisplayPort on a different monitor with known-good cables, because DVI working does not completely rule out a cable or display-input problem.
The HDMI and DisplayPort problem happens with all of my monitors, and I’ve already reset the GPUs several times. I’ll investigate the PCIe slot, RAM, and PSU next.
Because the screen can stay black for minutes and the RTX 3070 sometimes shuts down, I’d treat the shutdowns as a separate hardware warning and test with another known-good PSU if possible.