0

I recently purchased a new video card and two new monitors. Since then, I've noticed that often after the monitors turn off due to inactivity, when they wake back up one or both of the screens are very blurry. They look exactly the same as the pictures in this question: Monitor gets weird "blurry?" display

When this happens, the only thing that fixes the problem is rebooting the computer. Powering off or disconnecting one of the monitors when it's in this state not only doesn't fix the problem, but it freezes the computer (the other monitor stops displaying output and the computer won't respond to me pushing the power button).

Previous setup, when I had no problems:

  • Nvidia GTX 670
  • Old LCD monitor @ 1920x1080
  • Windows 10

Current setup:

  • Nvidia GTX 1070ti
  • Two BenQ GW2765HT @ 2560x1440
  • The same Windows 10 installation

Things I've tried:

  • Updating graphics driver, including uninstalling the old one first
  • Switching which ports the monitors were connected to on the GPU
  • Replacing the DisplayPort cables with new ones
  • Running and SFC scan
  • Making sure Stereoscopic 3D is disabled in Nvidia Control Panel

I'm not sure what else to try at this point. The post I linked to mentioned that the problem went away after upgrading from Windows 8.1 to 10, but I'm already on 10.

Current Nvidia driver version is 417.01

Chris B
  • 638
  • 8
  • 13
  • The post you linked also says that this is fixed by changing the resolution and then changing it back. Does that workaround work in your case? – harrymc Dec 01 '18 at 17:50
  • Thanks for pointing that out, I'll give that a try next time this happens. That might be a workaround to needing to reboot, but I'd really like to figure out how to stop it from happening in the first place – Chris B Dec 01 '18 at 17:57
  • Did you get the video driver from the [NVIDIA Driver Downloads](https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx)? – harrymc Dec 01 '18 at 18:07
  • Yep I did. I've tested it with and without GeForce Experience installed as well, but it's made no difference – Chris B Dec 01 '18 at 18:10
  • This is probably hardware, either defective video card or incorrect setting on your part, for example too-high resolution or refresh rate. Check your parameters and my above workaround, but if you can find nothing then maybe you should ask to replace the video card. – harrymc Dec 01 '18 at 18:19
  • Changing the resolution doesn't fix it, though at a lower resolution it appears less blurry. Oddly, when the screen was blurry, Windows gave me the option to set a higher resolution than I should be able to. I tried this out of curiosity, and I had to hard poweroff (it didn't change back to the original resolution after 15 seconds, it just stayed black) – Chris B Dec 03 '18 at 15:02
  • I think your monitor is the GW2765HT, not the GW2756HT. – harrymc Dec 03 '18 at 15:21

1 Answers1

2

I think I fixed this issue by downgrading my Nvidia driver from the latest 417.21 to 411.63. Something appears to be broken in the new 417 driver build from Nvidia. My issue is described below:

I was having a very similar issue as you described. The problem happens after waking the computer up from a monitor off state, not sleep. My second monitor becomes very blurry after the monitors have been in rest mode for a few hours. I've tried completely uninstalling my Nvidia drivers and updating to the latest, no help. I've tried adjusting resolution when the problem occurs, no change. If I turn off the affected monitor; the computer completely locks up and has to be reset. This started less than a week ago.

Brian B
  • 36
  • 2
  • Well that's good to know. I just put in a replacement request with Amazon for the GPU because I didn't know what else to try, I'll have to see if I can hold off on that. How long have you been using the downgraded drivers? – Chris B Dec 04 '18 at 14:43
  • I'm having exactly the problems that you described. It's occurring randomly when my monitors go to sleep due to the "turn monitors off after x minutes of inactivity" setting, not when my computer goes to sleep – Chris B Dec 04 '18 at 15:01
  • I made the driver change last night around 24 hours ago (it is almost 11pm now) and the issue has not re-appeared since. It would appear if I let my monitors turn off for more than 2 hours previously. Try downgrading drivers and see if it solves your issue as well. As stated, I used 411.63 so start there. – Brian B Dec 05 '18 at 03:39
  • I downgraded to 411.63 as well. However, Windows 10 promptly decided to override that and install 416. I had to set a group policy to stop it from doing that. I also saw that Windows was at version 1803 so I upgraded it 1809, maybe that will help as well. It'll take me a while to confirm that this fixed the problem, since my issues were sporadic. – Chris B Dec 05 '18 at 14:19
  • Also, the [release notes](https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/417.22/417.22-win10-win8-win7-notebook-release-notes.pdf) for driver 417.22 lists the fixed issue: "Display corruption may occur on higher refresh rate DisplayPort monitors upon resume from sleep mode", so maybe the latest driver update addresses our issue – Chris B Dec 05 '18 at 14:24
  • It's been about a week now since I last had any problems, so downgrading the driver to 411.63 seems to have fixed it. Upgrading Windows 10 may have helped as well. – Chris B Dec 11 '18 at 14:53