Monitor Problem

[Miltiades]

I got myself a new monitor about a month ago, and for the most part I had no problems with it. But when I do have problems with it, it can take some tedious work to fix it, and I know it's only going to be temporary. Anyway, information:

 

Product: Acer H243H TFT 24" WideScreen.

 

Problem: Monitor gives 'No Signal" message and screen turns black. Restarting, turning off the power, unplug the DVI cable, nothing fixes the problem.

 

Cause: The only thing I've done different than every other day is turning on my computer and only turning on my monitor 30 minutes later. I normally turn it on together with my computer.

 

Temporary Solution: While I'm using the DVI cable, plugging in the VGA cable (with the DVI cable still in) fixes the problem of the screen not showing anything. Problem afterwards is making the computer accept the DVI again, because the VGA has reset the resolution and quality of the display. Normally shouldn't be that hard, changing the "input" via the monitor's menu should make DVI available again (after which I can pull out the VGA cable again), but only after I have restarted Windows. This time, I made the mistake of not doing that, and trying to take out the VGA cable before changing input (realized my mistake the second I did it). At one point, it didn't accept it anymore. Unplugging cables and trying things led to the screen showing everything up to entering Windows. Had to reinstall the nVidia drivers (which I had done to solve the problem the first time I encountered it) via "Safe Mode" (which was accessible, as opposed to the normal Windows mode). The VGA cable is still in, now, since this time, it doesn't want to recognize the DVI for some reason.

 

Other Information: Working on Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3; graphics card is an nVidia 8800GT PCI-E and is up to date.

 

I hope someone's got a permanent solution for this. The temporary solution isn't guaranteed to work, and it brings work with it that I'd rather not have. Acer's support website isn't the best, there's no forum for specific Acer problems and Google has yet to bring me a satisfying answer.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Q]

It sounds like your monitor's DVI input is defective and has decided to flake out. Try it again with a different DVI cable and also try the second DVI output on your video card (with both cables) just to be sure. If it is the input, then the only solution for this is either to return the monitor to wherever you bought it for an exchange/refund or to RMA it with Acer.

 

Try the first option if you can, as it would be the simplest and the least time-consuming, and should still be possible since it's only been ~1 month since you bought it.

[Astrotoy7]

Yep, definitely get onto asap Miltiades. Q's suggested steps are a very sensible to go about it. It's brand new so should be working a treat every single time.

 

mtfbwya

[Miltiades]

Strange thing is that when it works, it works just fine. It just has a hard time finding the DVI connection sometimes (For the moment, though, it's not finding it). I'll have to myself another DVI cable to try this out, first. I'd rather not return monitor, though. Never have sent something back to the manufacturer in my life, and I'd like to try everything I can before doing that.

 

Thanks for the reply, guys.

[Ray Jones]

Try a different computer. Might be your graphic card, so you should rule that out.

[Q]

^^^

Yup. Do that, too, if you can.

 

Did you buy the monitor online or in an actual store, and what is the return policy for wherever you bought it? I ask this because it might be better/faster to try dealing with them first. If it's past the date when you return/exchange something at store/etailer, then you'll have to deal with Acer directly, and RMAs to OEMs can be slow.

 

You shouldn't have to buy another DVI cable. You could just try out the one you have on someone else's computer and monitor to rule out a defective cable. You can then take the opportunity to try out the monitor as well.