Monitor turns off and on
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Monitor Keeps Turning Off And On

Is your monitor suddenly turning off and then back on? Here is what's happening...

Is your monitor turning on and off and it drives you crazy? And does it happen just about when you move the mouse, or right after? You might have experienced that problem and looked for solutions, and all you can see are some novice recommendations to check if your cable is lose?

In my case, I don’t know what drove crazier, the fact that it was happening, or that I would have to read obvious responses such as: Reinstall your driver. None of that helped.

Talking about solutions that didn’t help. Before I get to the solution, below are the most common not helping recommendations.

Solutions That Are Not Helpful:

No, it’s not. Even though you are experiencing the same problem when plugging your monitor to other PCs, your monitor could be just fine, even though occasionally it turns black, and comes back again.

The most common response is that your power cable or the HDMI cable might be broken. But usually, that’s not the case.

Your drivers are up to date. And even when you reinstalled them, the problem continues. So, it’s not a software issue. 

Nope. Your Windows power settings have nothing to do with your monitor turning off all in a sudden. Microsoft would beg the differ that their power options would do such nonsense. Even though, it wouldn’t surprise me with Microsoft. However, this time, it’s not Microsoft’s fault. As surprising that might be. So, don’t bother with your power settings.

You could try to go around your menu settings on your monitor and try to solve the problem there. In my case, that didn’t do anything to solve the issue.

Your motherboard, CPU, memory card or graphics card are maybe broken? And why does other monitors work, then? Makes no sense, so that can’t be the issue here.

I will stop right here. Because the theories about what could be the issue are endless. Let me go straight to the solution that really helps. Understand the real problem:

This Solution Will Help:

When your monitor turns off and on just like that, in most of the cases, I would guess 90% it’s because the HDMI cable is not able to transfer the data from your PC and vice versa fast enough. Only these two solutions below will help you:

 

You Need a High Speed HDMI Cable!

You wouldn’t believe it, but especially when you have a high screen resolution or an ultra-wide screen connected to your PC with a cheap HDMI cable, this problem is most likely to occur. Unfortunately, even the manufacturers would provide you a cheap HDMI cable such as sometimes Dell monitors do. For instance, if you are using a Dell UltraSharp screen or similar monitors such as Samsung Ultrawide Curved Monitors, the sellers sometimes tend to send a HDMI cable that is not up to the task. The moment the signals are not being transferred correctly, your monitor — for instance as a second monitor — will just turn off. And maybe turn back on, when the data can be transferred in full again.

Basically, your HDMI cable shuts down because it’s not able to transfer the necessary amount of data at the same time. A data transfer error occurs, your HDMI port communicates that error with the hardware of your monitor, and it shuts off automatically to prevent further damage.

You can solve this problem buy buying a more expensive HDMI cable that is able to transfer more Gigabytes per Second (Gpbs). Not all HDMI cables are the same. They are like LAN cables. Some of them can’t transfer enough data. You need a high-speed HDMI cable to do the job. Usually an 18 Gbps HDMI cable will do the job. If you want to be on the save side, buy a faster one such as a 48 Gbps.

For Ultra-wide screens and 4K screens, you should be good using an 18 Gpbs HDMI cable. If you have higher resolutions such as 8K, use a 48 Gbps HDMI cable.

Some HDMI manufacturers will even display that their HDMI cable is made for 4K or even 8K screens. Go looking for those and your problems should be gone.

 

The Last Resort

If a high-speed HDMI cable didn’t resolve your problem, your last result would be to switch to something more powerful than HDMI: USB 3.0! Usually today’s modern monitors provide more plugin opportunities than just HDMI. USB 3.0 has a much higher data rate and also provides more power through your USB slot on your PC.

But be aware that if you are using a monitor with a monstrous resolution, even your USB port might not be able to provide enough power. Especially when you have already milked the power of your PC’s USB ports with lots of other devices using USB hubs.

In that case, your last resort would be to buy a powered USB 3.0 Hub: A USB hub with a power cable that at least should have 12V. Plug your monitor’s USB cable in there.

If that doesn’t work, it might be really some of the problems mentioned above. But usually, that last resort will get your problem fixed once and for all.

 

Did this help? If you are happy with this solution, leave me a comment as thank you. Thank you!

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3 comments for “Monitor Keeps Turning Off And On

  1. Takshak Patil,
    January 11, 2023 at 12:44 pm

    nicely explained everything, point by point , DIDN’T FIND ANYONE BETTER THAN THIS SITE FOR SOLUTIONs , keep it up , be the same 🤞

  2. DUCK MCFERGISON,
    October 22, 2021 at 7:46 pm

    I NEVER COMMENT ON THESE BUT THIS ACTUALLY WORKED DUCK YEAH

  3. Dave,
    June 26, 2021 at 4:50 am

    This worked for me, thank you :)

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