asked on
Problem with Dell XPS display
have a Dell desktop XPS 8700 with Windows 10.
Last few days it is acting strange. The screen goes black and sometimes the light changes from green to orange.
I checked all cable connections and they are good.
I rebooted it several times and then i can see the desktop but after some time same thing happens and screen turns black.
Any idea what might be the problem? Could new windows update or virus causing this?
ASKER
I connected another monitor and it worked fine. I assume this means something went bad with the monitor and it needs to be recycled?
The new monitor has two connectors: regular blue VGA one and another white one with two set of 12 pins. Is the white one for better digital HD display and blue one for regular definition?
Yes, the white connector will get you a better image.
It sounds like your monitor is failing? How old is your monitor? If it has fluorescent tubes, they could be failing.
test the "bad" monitor on another pc
it can simply be bad contacts in the connector, or cable; often wiggling the cable a bit (carefully) is enough to fix it, or dis and re-connect
It's also possible the "Blue" (VGA - Analog) part of the graphics card at the computer end is failing independently.
The "White" (DVI - Digital) connection may still work fine and we're blaming the monitor unnecessarily. As your monitor accepts both input types switch to the "White" DVI and see how you get on.
The blue connector should be a 15 pin VGA connector with pins arranged in a trapezoidal pattern. This is the older analog connector. The same resolution from VGA can look blurry compared to the DVI connector.
The white connector should be the DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connector. It's the digital connector that can also carry analog signals. There are more pins and are arranged in a rectangular pattern to one side with a bar and pins to the other. Some pins can be missing depending on which DVI (DVI-A, DVI-D, DVI-I) interface it is. The DVI connector can supply a higher resolution through the digital pins.
With older monitors, it's usually the fluorescent tubes or the power circuit for the fluorescent tubes that fail rather than anything with the graphics card, although that can be a possibility, but it's much rarer. These will all fail eventually as they age, but they can still last a long time. There are many, expensive, higher end Dell Fluorescent backlit LED screens that still work perfectly fine even now, more than 10 years later. They definitely use more power than LED backlit screens, but still less than the old CRT tubes.
LCDs with LED back lights won't generally have an entire screen go blank. With earlier panels, you'd mainly see a portion of the LEDs fail and you'd see dark regions, generally starting from the bottom or top edges. If an entire screen does go blank, it may actually be the graphics card or possibly a broken cable, but again, it's generally the LED backlights that fail first, especially on older cheap models. Cables will fail mainly because it's been twisted, bent, crimped from being crammed up against things.
Something to try: disconnect all cables and open the system case, remove dust from the inside and once done, reseat the video card. Check for a retainer screw, you will have to remove it first.