Minor PC problem.

[artie]

My PC is quite old (i3 processor) but does all that I require.

A while back I added a NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 graphics card so I could connect it up to a wall mounted TV via HDMI cable.

All well and good except that I am too impatient to wait for it too boot up 4 or 5 times per day, so I just let it go to sleep and then all I have to do is touch the mouse or keyboard and it springs to life.

Except that it doesn't always.

Quite often the video signal doesn't return and I have to reset, which isn't the end of the world but annoying.

So now I set it to not sleep at all but when idle for a while still loses the video signal and has to be rebooted.

Anyone have a fix?

 

[Woody2Shoes]

It sounds like the graphics card goes to sleep and then doesn't wake up properly.

I would ensure that the card's firmware - and that of the motherboard - are up-to-date and check the bios settings around the process of sleeping/hibernating/power management.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

It sounds like the graphics card goes to sleep and then doesn't wake up properly.

I would ensure that the card's firmware - and that of the motherboard - are up-to-date and check the bios settings around the process of sleeping/hibernating/power management.

When the machine wakes up, it could be reverting to the original built-in video/graphics system - you could check this by plugging monitor into that?

 

[martin.pearson]

It could be an overheating problem, open it up & give it a good clean out including the fan on the graphics card.

 

[Chip shop]

TBH this has started happening to me on my new Spectre 360 HP. I put it down to Windows 11 teething problems. Only intermittent though.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Maybe bitcoin mining malware ?!

 

[Sachakins]

I have tv connected to acer as my display. Most times the screen comes to life, but if left for a while screen doesn't come on. Turned out that my TV was going to standby because no signal and so would only come on from its remote, used remote to switch back on from standby and tap mouse to wake up pc and all is well.

 

[Sheptonphil]

What Sachakins says is the most likely.

 

[Richard_C]

Agreed, my very old machine got confused when the monitor went off but the newer one seems to cope. Other things to look at:

Settings - system - power & sleep - you will have set the sleep time to never but also have a look at related settings - additional power settings and dig in to all the options. There might be something set differently from what you want.

NVIDIA loads its own software when you install, whats's in there depends on the card you have. Right click on the desktop, away from any icons, the drop down will show the nvidia control panel. Also display settings from the same menu. Have a poke around in both, you might find something. Not very likely but quick to check out.

Whatever you do, the machine will power down and reboot when it does windows updates. Again under settings, update and security, look at 'active hours' - it should be set to the times you use the machine so updates happen outside of that. Default is 8.00 - 17.00, most useful might be to change the 17.00 to after bedtime, You might well have to reconnect next day if it does do an update. In theory big updates are monthly and on Tuesdays, but they can pop up at any time expecially if an urgent security fix arrives.

Do tell us what works when it works.

 

[jcassidy]

I have the same setup for the kids to watch whatever streaming channels I'm paying for this month.

You could help diagnose which device is causing the issue by using your remote to move away from the HDMI channel and then go back to it. If that doesn't work, try turning your TV off and on. If either of those pick up the HDMI signal, it's the power-saving settings on your TV - turn them all off.

Otherwise look, as previously suggested, at your power-saving settings in BIOS and in the nVideo graphics application.

You might also plug the cable into a normal PC monitor and see if the problem reoccurs (you can hurry it along by setting your PC to sleep after a minute).

 

[sploo]

I had the same issue with an old PC and a HDMI connection to a TV. When I put a newer graphics card in the PC (and obviously newer drivers) the problem went away. It's a stab in the dark, but maybe the latest nVidia drivers (assuming you haven't already got it) might be a solution.

 

[Spectric]

My PC is quite old (i3 processor) but does all that I require.

We are all in that same position, when it was new it did everything we wanted and performed well, so wind forward to now and it is the same machine so should perform as well but no, the powers that be have changed this and bloated the software so really forcing people to upgrade just to keep a usable machine and keep business flowing. We are lucky that woodworking machines do not have an OS, otherwise we would also be at there mercy to and is a good reason to avoid anything with software if at all possible.

 

[DBT85]

It does a little depend on what level you entered at. Many moons ago I'd have an upgrade every 12 to 18 months. Over the last 20 years that cadence has dropped drastically and this 6700k is still going strong with no sign of letting up 6 years on.

While the older i3's were a cheap option and did indeed do what they were asked, they were only just barely doing it when new.

All depends what you are doing with it too naturally.

 

[sploo]

...the powers that be have changed this and bloated the software so really forcing people to upgrade just to keep a usable machine and keep business flowing.

Us software grunts aren't an evil cabal of shady conspirators you know

Performance and capacity of computer hardware moves on over time, and customers demand more and more features - it's natural then that the next version of a program (or OS) will utilise more resources than previous releases, thus putting more strain on older hardware.

Effort is usually spent on trying to ensure programs will run on a range of hardware, but at some point older kit will struggle.

 

[southport]

Microsoft has never been great at "sleep" most people with a computer background turn this off. Like your graphics card it even sends hard drives to sleep if they are not required, which would be great if it works!!! You say the problem is the wait for start up have you tried changing the boot up drive to a ssd hard drive and if you watch and turn off the software that is starting when you start up you could and should even with i3 have it down to seconds. Granted it was an i7 but I had the boot down to about 14secs. But I have to admit I only turn off the main computer at night and it gets started each morning. Yes I am lazy But as I said I suggest sticking the operating system on an SSd drive. Put you files and content on the drive you use now and migrate the windows to SSD.

 

[nickds1]

No direct fix - almost certainly confusion with the screen in standby...

Us software grunts aren't an evil cabal of shady conspirators you know

Performance and capacity of computer hardware moves on over time, and customers demand more and more features - it's natural then that the next version of a program (or OS) will utilise more resources than previous releases, thus putting more strain on older hardware.

Effort is usually spent on trying to ensure programs will run on a range of hardware, but at some point older kit will struggle.

This is the basic issue (I'm a long-time developer: hardware design, software & firmware in a variety of languages). Higher resolution screens, more demanding graphics, increasing memory footprints, more functionality... the list goes on.

An i3 is really at the bottom end of the hardware food chain. The PC I use in my office is an i7 870, released in 2013 - I built this machine using a Gigabyte H55M-UD2H motherboard in about 2014, so it's been running happily, mostly 24/7/365, for 7 years. As a development host, It's fine and is (and always has been) rock-solid stable & reliable. It has had a new PSU and new graphics card (NVIDIA Quadro P400), plus a 1TB MX500 SSD, so not quite "Trigger's Broom" as the motherboard and CPU are still the same. It's always been on a UPS as we are out in the country, and brown-outs & spikes are common.

It won't do Windows 11 as it lacks certain features that W11 requires (yes, I'm fully aware you can circumvent this stuff, but that's not the point). Windows 10 is fine and will be supported for several more years, so there's absolutely no reason whatsoever for most folk to even think about "upgrading" to W11 for yonks...

In my case, I will probably rebuild with a new system in about 6 months as some of my customers will be using W11 and I'll need a decent test platform. If that wasn't the case, I really wouldn't think about it.

 

[Richard_C]

Another thought, is reboot taking too long? Maybde you can live with having to reboot if it is faster.

Lots of apps install things in startup routine without asking you or telling you, and will re-install in startup if you get an update. For example Adobe Acrobat, but they don't need to. If you open a pdf and acrobat is the default handler and isn't running it will open anyway, just takes a few seconds more. My Epson printer monitor installed itself in startup, again it opens and runs fine if you send something to print but I probabaly only do that every 3 or 4 days so no need for it to run in background. I don't want skype running unless I tell it to, so that is disabled, and so on.

If you go to settings, apps and scroll down to startup its easy to disable stuff you don't need and that can speed up reboots considerably. It might help. Its worth checking from time to time in case anything new has snuck in.

 

[Chris_Pallet]

I had same, had to unplug / plug display cable, or then completely reset the old thing.
But as always just the Internet was too much of a demand of it
So the balance of daily frustration x cost
I have it to a needy family on freecycle and got a 2nd hand laptop...
Which boots up in less than a minute!
Definitely have a consider as Christmas is coming up

 

[artie]

Thanks everyone for your constructive comments.
The old PC (i3) is well up to all I demand from it, surfing, watching old episodes of Adam 12 and utube.

At present there are 39 tabs open, 5 different partially viewed utube videos, one Adam 12 episode and a load of other stuff that I may never go back to.

This is why I prefer sleep. when it wakes everything is as I left it. If I reboot, everything starts at the beginning again.

I have a ssd the boot time is quite impressive but still everything or most, reset to the beginning.

However there may be light, day before yesterday I disabled the nvidia card and it's been ok since. if it lasts another day without losing video, I'll try sleep mode again.

 

[Blaidd-Drwg]

I haven't seen the word "Linux" mentioned here, so here goes...

This is not an immediate solution to your problem but more long term if you intend to keep the computer as long as possible. Some Linux distros are very user friendly now and have the same functionality for the user as a Windows or Apple machine. This does not mean they run exactly the same applications, but that they can perform the same functions. My step-mother and my wife both have laptops running Linux and would never go back to Windows.

You will find that in many cases a Linux machine will work better on older hardware. That has become less true over the past few years only because of the browsers, which have become resource hogs and will max out your memory if given half a chance.

One more thing is that I don't put any of my machines to sleep/hibernate (my Microsoft work laptop, or my Linux personal laptop). It simply creates more trouble that it's worth.