Hardware - Should I be concerned?

[GRoston]

Over the past two days, my monitor has gone black, for less than one second, three times and this has happened when nothing special was going on. Question: Should I be concerned about the computer's hardware? If so, are there any tests I can run to figure out the cause of the problem?

 

[Clippy84]

This happens to me when someone, elsewhere, plugs in a portable electric fan. Could just be the building circuits. Or, if you're in a hemisphere that's at the height of summer, I guess heat might be involved?

 

[GRoston]

Clippy84 - I would agree with you, but my monitor is plugged into a UPS...

 

[Clippy84]

Ok, well then the only thing I can suggest is that some UPS's have a couple of 'surge only' plug-sockets. If it's not plugged into one of those, then I'd suggest the graphics-card's heat triggering a small cut-out of the signal to the monitor? Could heat be causing the graphics-card to flex in its motherboard socket, perhaps? Is it firmly seated and locked in with levers?

 

[flavallee]

What did you do to your PC before the blackout issue occurred?
What type of cable connection (VGA, HDMI, DVI, etc.) do you have between the PC and monitor?
How old is the monitor?

 

[GRoston]

Did nothing to the PC.
The cable is a VGA cable - perhaps change it to HDMI?
The monitor is not that old - five or six years.

Monitor just went dark again - twice - each time for 30+ seconds. Very annoying and concerning. I checked the power and signal cables an all are properly attached and the monitor's ON LED stayed lit.

 

[flavallee]

Does your PC have integrated graphics or a dedicated graphics card?
Does your monitor have built-in speakers, or are you using external speakers?
Have you tried using a different VGA cable or testing the monitor on a different PC?

 

[GRoston]

Dedicated graphics card, but it is relatively new.
External speakers.

I decided to try using a HDMI cable, but my monitor does not have an HDMI port. So, I am going to purchase a new monitor.

 

[michael diemer]

A good option, if you can afford it. You can always use a spare monitor, if the old one does still work. I had a similar problem, and a new monitor solved it. I also replaced the old computer it was attached to, just in case. I mean, the computer was from 2009, so it was time! Sometimes you do have to upgrade hardware, as much as I prefer to keep old stuff going. Still, the "new" computer was actually almost as old as the "old" one. But a reconditioned HP Elite 8300 is a very good machine, for 131.00.

 

[SIW2]

HP Elite 8300

I have an old 8300 sff . They cost next to nothing now

 

[GRoston]

The long delay happened again, so out of desperation, I changed the HDMI cable and that seems to have resolved the issue.

 

[MisterEd]

The long delay happened again, so out of desperation, I changed the HDMI cable and that seems to have resolved the issue.

Good to see you got things sorted out. I am surprised nobody suggested trying a different cable before.

I have not had too many video cable go bad. The last one was the HDMI cable from my cable provider.

Update:

When I turned on one computer yesterday I saw no video on the monitor. Trying another DVI cable fixed the problem. I guess the old DVI cable had gone bad.