Computer Questions Thread

[Sly Reflex]

Yes, I get the black flicker as well. Not so much a flicker in that it's the screen rotating around it's inputs to see which one it should be using. ASUS as well, it happens mainly when booting chrome with media players in. So youtube/spotify etc.

 

It used to happen with the single monitor for me, but also happens with my duel set up.

[one-armed dwarf]

Ty, I thought my GPU was dying lol. 

 

GPU issues are stressful in normal times but I would be so upset if something happened and I couldn't get it RMA/replaced cause of supply issues

 

(This is the fun part of PC's maf that you can look forward to, constant paranoia that shit is dying cause of a driver bug)

[Sly Reflex]

The mad thing with my new PC is the screen cycling actually makes my log in longer because everything boots up so quickly I'm waiting for the screen to display.

 

If you told me this several years ago that PC's booted so quickly that I'd have issues with displays I would have laughed at you.

[DANGERMAN]

@one-armed dwarfalready answered but I have that too. My pc is hooked up to my TV too, so turning that on or off means I lose picture on my monitor briefly a couple of times

[Maf]

Are people only losing connection when the monitors are booting then or is it happening while playing games as well? 

[one-armed dwarf]

It's happening while playing games. I logged into ffxiv at lunchtime (shhhh) to check out market rates and it flickered a bit

 

Which would be disastrous for raiding if it happened. But it sounds like it's just dual monitor users who have to worry.

[Sly Reflex]

Mine only does it when Chrome is open. I think it's specifically to do with media plug ins and accelerated pages, like Spotify kills the feed for a few seconds when it tries to play an ad (can't because adblock). Otherwise the only the time it does it is when I turn the second screen on and the PC works out what is going where.

[Maf]

I think I'm having the screen losing input signal issue too. But so far only when I'm on Steam looking at games. If I scroll up or down on any of their pages the screen goes black for a moment before coming back. Wow that really sucks. 

[DANGERMAN]

That doesn't sound like the same problem tbh, no idea what it will be though

[Maf]

Yeah, I dunno either. I’ve googled as best I can and no luck. I’m just deleting everything steam related off the computer and try reinstall in from scratch. I haven’t changed any settings at all as far as I know so really can’t figure this out 

[Sly Reflex]

Nvidia put an update out yesterday, so it could be this.

[Maf]

I took a video of if because I can’t figure it out or think of a different way to type “screen goes black” in to Google. Anybody know of help pages I can maybe look at?
 

I fucked up too and deleted all my games and probably saves as well. Sigh. Back to playing Forza for the next week while everything redownloads 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah that's not the problem I've been having

 

Ill take a guess and say it's GPU related, and something to do with hardware acceleration on web browsers. But completely uneducated and probably incorrect

 

I'd post it on nvidia reddit tbh, and take a look in Event Viewer (google how to look that up)

 

Anyway, not usual what's happening in that video

 

edit one thing I'll say is it has nothing to do with what games you have installed, so you shouldn't have uninstalled everything like that. But if it only happens with steam that's pretty weird. IMO try watching some youtube videos, or twitch streams, and see if it happens there too

[Maf]

Yeah, tried that. Everything else is fine. 

 

I can't even figure out how to post to Reddit. Tried twice and it gets automatically deleted. I've never used the website before so I dunno. 

 

Maybe I just turn the computer off for a week and come back to it. It broke itself maybe it can fix itself. 

EDIT: I think it's somethign specific about the videos on the Steam game pages. Because the screen goes black when clicking in to it, and when scrolling down when the video isn't on the screen anymore. Scroll back up and as soon as it's on the screen back to black. So I think it's that but I dunno how, why or what could have changed from two days ago. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Next time it happens then, go into event viewer. Again look up how to do that, but basicaly you're looking for a log with timestamps that will show errors and 'events'. So when this issue occurred, it would have triggered something in there. That's where you would start with this

 

Not the fun part of PC gaming, I have to admit. Considering the cost. Almost all the time these issues are something benign, a weirdness in a driver or something. But it's always annoying not knowing 

[Maf]

I got to here but I don't know what to so with this

 

 

 

The times don't really match when the error was happening. There should be a lot more of them considering how often it's happened with me trying to fix it. 

 

Also side note but why does my taskbar keep disappearing when Guilty Gear is playing? It doesn't happen with any other game. Not the worst because windows key brings it back. But I don't think it's supposed to happen. 

 

EDIT: Phew. Looks like I didn't lose my saves even though games were uninstalled. Very thankful I don't have to play 9 hours of GotG again. 

 

EDIT 2: Ahh. So it's not those it's this 

 

 

What should I do next? How do I find out more about this error and what it means? 

 

@one-armed dwarf @Jimbo Xiii I require your expert advice, please 🙌

[one-armed dwarf]

Just look through the logs for a timestamp that matches when the event occurs.

 

At this point, you've probably forgot how long ago it was. So just wait for it to happen again (or try to force it), then go through the Window logs and just find one of those things there. It'll say weird computer nonsense, like that one does

 

Then you can google that specific error

 

Anyway, it's probably something very minor. But it's easily the worst aspect of PC stuff. With a console if something goes wrong, you just have to accept it but not think about it much. On PC you kinda need to check stuff out a bit.

[Maf]

It’s definitely that because I went on Steam, made it fuck up, then that was the next thing to appear on the Event Viewer. It said something about not having access in the component something. I dunno. It’s all above me. Think I just have to continue for now.

 

Now GG won’t work since I reinstalled it. Keep getting to the lobby and having network errors. Don’t know if that’s legit their servers or me fucking up the files when I deleted everything. 
 

Sigh. It was all going so well. 

[one-armed dwarf]

GG having network errors? Unbelievable.

 

That has nothing to do with your PC. PC errors are things like shit crashing, or turning off randomly. Scary things. A game having network errors is a completely different thing. It's a problem with that game's servers (spoiler, it has shit servers)

[Maf]

I seem to have fixed it by messing with the Nvidia Control Panel. I can't tell what I did though