Monitor Goes Off Randomly

[RobertX]

My mother has a laptop connected to a monitor so she doesn't have to contend with the small monitor size and use the big screen.

The recently trouble with that at least once a day, the monitor goes off and we would have to pull it out and jab the fucker back in for it to work. It may not even work immediately, so we do it once, twice, or thrice so that she can still use the fucking monitor.

We tried three different cables and same thing.

The thing is, we can't even tighten the cable end connecting to the laptop and I think that's why it goes off.

The good news is that it does work eventually; the bad news is that it's a pain in the ass to have to crawl over to the back and jam the cable over and over.

Can it be the laptop, can it be the cable, or can it be the monitor?

One million reminbi to the first person who answers.

[RodneyYouPlonker]

I have no idea what is causing the problem Robert because I am not there or present in the room with you to tell you what's happening.

I can infact tell you that I had some problems with a computer here and I'd just fitted a new cable.  It turned out that every now and again when I would switch the monitor on the picture looked all scrambled a bit like visual noise on the screen.  I thought it could have been a Windows 10 problem but it wasn't.  I tried using a different kind of cable, tried a HDMI cable instead of a DVI cable.  It made no difference.  After messing around for ages it turned out that it was down to the Windows driver that was installed.  This whole AMD thing I was telling you about, they had programmed it completely wrong the people at AMD.  I managed to put the older driver back on and made sure that Win10 couldn't install a newer driver over the top of it and that worked for me.

It was a driver issue lots of drivers go wrong and they are not programmed right because these people who make drivers are shit at their job.  Even in 2021 this happens.

I wish I could help you if I was in the room and I could diagnose the problem for you which can take time.  I am no good at all this diagnosing over an internet forum.

It could well be the cable try and replace it and see what happens they are not expensive.

I have a problem with an old monitor I have at the moment and the power light flickers a bit sometimes and there's nothing I can do about it I'd have to replace the whole monitor.

It's possible it's highly likely it's a driver issue you are facing could always revert back to a previous driver and try that as a beginning idea and see where that leads??

[RobertX]

I'm certain that it's not the driver because if it was, it would have done that a long time ago.

Since the last wipe, I have never ever replaced the old driver for the video portion of the laptop. If it was the driver, it should have chosen a better time to fuck up a long time ago.

But that being said, I am also certain that it's not the cable.

I guess, as you said, it boils down to the monitor. If it fails again, I'll try switching my monitors around.

Thanks RodneyYouPlonker for the reply.

[ill88eagle]

Why would it be a driver issue? That makes no sense.

To me it sounds as if there is a loose connection somewhere (sometimes taking 3 tries before it works), and since it's not in the cable, it will have to be the plug on either the monitor or the laptop

[RobertX]

Yeah, that's what I think too.

It's just strange that it happens so sudden; we never had that type of problem before.

EDIT: The problem is, the connection can't be tightened no matter how long I try.

[Moe]

It is entirely possible it is the monitor itself failing. I got a few more months out of it by attaching it to a power strip so I could hard power cycle it when it wouldn't turn on.

[RobertX]

You know Moe, that does sound about right.

The thing has been around for over a decade; we bought it around ten years ago. I'm turning to a new system as a last resort.

[waregim]

Does jiggling the connector do anything?

Cable may be fine but connector becoming intermittent.

Bad news is that it sounds like the connector. Good news is it might be fixable with a soldering gun.

Or a good swift kick.

[RobertX]

Which "connector?" the ones on the cable or the ports on the laptop?

[waregim]

At either end.

Connectors, on board and on cable are made cheap these days.

One one machine, if I brush up against tit, I have to reseat the connectors.

And heaven help the routers when the lil lady vacuums....