Is it possible for a bad monitor to lock up a computer?

[Tale]

Problem started a few months ago. Shortly after starting a game, my computer would lock up.

 

Lock up in context is:

1) Monitor goes black. Reports "no signal." Cannot recover from this state.

2) Sometimes sound continues. Sometimes sound goes into a loop. Sometimes it'll continue THEN go into a loop.

 

First thing did was replace video card and power supply. Problem continued with additional noticed symptom:

 

3) Occasional odd artifacting (weird little static-like spots usually displaced to the right of the mouse cursor that would appear briefly) on desktop and Internet Explorer. Reproduceability uncertain. Included the "lock up" on desktop, not even in game.

 

It was recommended that I try a clean Windows install. Did so. Problem happened with a bare bones Window install and nothing else. Replaced every remaining part of the computer except hard drives, mouse, keyboard, monitor. Problem still occured, all 3 symptoms. Has happened twice with this new system, though once had a different error claiming an incompatible signal instead of no signal.

 

I'm testing out an old CRT to see if problem persists with a different monitor, but even if the problem doesn't show up, it still seems awkward that the monitor could cause it. Monitor runs at 1680x1050 native. Desktop runs native. Was running 1440x900 for games with old system. Don't exactly recall res I ran a game at when experiencing the problem on the new system. Old CRT monitor I'm testing with is running 1600x1200. And I'll update with how that goes when I get time to play some games to test it.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited May 15, 2008 by Tale

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I have had that happen to me, although it my case it was a bad display driver combined with lousy game code - rolling back and tweaking eliminated it.

[Moatilliatta]

I'd guess it could theoretically be possible that a short would travel from the monitor to the graphicscard and cause a lock-up, but I would think that the chance would be similar to being struck by lightning.

 

Could the harddrive be corrupt and do something to cause this?

[Tale]

Now I'm not so sure it's the monitor. Back to the original train of thought, it's the graphics card. And I got a mysteriously bad graphics card to replace the old bad graphics. Or at least this has become bad. Or has bad drivers.

 

*sigh*

 

Experiencing graphical problems even with Sam & Max (only game installed) at varying resolutions that didn't happen in the widescreen resolution. Don't know best way to describe it. Each instance only lasts a frame, so I can't screenshot it. It's the problem where polygons will stretch or distort oddly.

 

I should probably find another game to test. And maybe just scream a little.

Edited May 16, 2008 by Tale

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Try playing around with the drivers and check to make sure you are not overheating the card.

[Tale]

I'm not even going to bother at this point. I just experienced the problem while running Sam & Max at 640x480 on the CRT. Two nearly completely different systems experiencing the exact same problem. Drivers and video card are among the things wholly different.

 

What I'd guess at this point is the hard drive has gone bad. Maybe it's wrong, but it's the only common element between the two builds that could possibly do this, unless a mouse, keyboard, and headset have more impact than I ever imagined. If the hard drive goes bad, it could cause the system to behave in this fashion, n'es?

 

Anyway, I'll have my uncle deal with it (he's my system builder). He'll be able to test for that faster and easier than I will. Though, with the amount of problems I have ever time I hire him to build a computer, I imagine he might turn me down next time. hahaha

[Gorgon]

A while I heard an loud bang as I accidentally yanked the monitor connector out of the graphics card connector while the power was on. The box shut down and I though that was that, the computer must be fried. There was even a visible scorch mark and the smell of burnt plastic. Oddest thing is it started up as if nothing had happened.

 

It shouldn't be possible to create a short that way at all, which only ads to the mystery.

Edited May 16, 2008 by Gorgon

[Humodour]

I doubt the monitor is causing PC problems. It is possible though that the monitor itself is locking up - it has it's own microchip(s) to control some basic functions.

[LadyCrimson]

Don't know best way to describe it. Each instance only lasts a frame, so I can't screenshot it. It's the problem where polygons will stretch or distort oddly.

As you guessed, such symptoms usually mean the actual video card or video drivers are fubar'd (or soon will be fubar'd) - my own vid card went this path this week, complete w/those graphical glitches - but since you tried on different systems/cards, it sounds mysterious.

 

Did you try changing all the cables, in case any of them have become faulty?

 

Hope you figure it out.

[taks]

so you replaced the motherboard too? doubtful that the monitor could take down the rest of your system since it is driven off of a chip that is isolated from the system. if the monitor is bad, it might fry the output driver on the chip on your video card, however, which could then cause issues with whatever bus the video card is hanging off of (PCI, AGP, PCI-E, etc.). this would even be an oddity since a dead driver chip would generally result in no video, but a working system.

 

otherwise, my guess would be mobo or both vid cards are crap to begin with, but if you replaced the mobo, then most likely bad video cards. got another (working) system to hook the monitor up to? a laptop even?

 

taks

[kalimeeri]

It could be the motherboard chipset is going. My daughter recently had a similar problem--strange graphical corruption and slowdown/bluescreens, particularly in games--which drove us nuts until we finally changed out the mobo. The new one (with the same video card and other hardware) solved the issue completely. Hers was an older Asus board that had been rock solid in the machine for some time... but we started noticing issues after connecting additional SATA devices, and it rapidly went downhill from there.

[Tale]

I went through the entire sequence of events exactly like you did. I had the indicated high temps and everything. Changed out everything inside the case; rebuilt the machine.

Well, in my case, it turned out the replacement graphics card was also fault.

Or maybe we reinstalled the bad one instead of the new one.

 

 

I think. It has been three years.

Edited May 16, 2011 by Tale