Solved PC turns on but no sign of life on the monitors

Hey hey!

Long story short, I was gaming last night and suddenly I heard the sound Windows makes when you disconnect something, and my monitors went black. I knew everything was still booted because I could hear what was happening in the game and I knew I could still minimize the game because when I did, the sound would stop.

I rebooted and the PC still has power, but there is no sign of life on the monitors. Oddly enough, they aren't doing anything at all. No light on the monitor indicating power, and it's not showing 'no signal'. Just completely black.

I also know that it's not the video card (it was my first instinct). I popped in my old video card which works completely fine as I am using it in a different PC, and I have the same problem. So I just need to figure out where to look next.

Could anyone give me some insight on what could have died while I was gaming for my monitors to not have any power? I could try a different PSU but if something happened to the PSU wouldn't I have no power at all?

veeg said:

Hello

Have you tired a different monitor? Give us your complete psu spec's.

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I can definitely try plugging in a different monitor I just haven't yet. I have two monitors plugged in and no power on either of them now.

In my system I have the Corsair CV Series CV550-550 Watt Power Supply which is almost brand new. Also running a GTX 2060 Super, ryzen 5 3600 and 16gb of ram

Pyro said:

That PSU is very under powered to be running a 20 series card, not only that but it's also bronze rated, as Phill would say: I would not trust this as a doorstop.

You should shoot for roughly 20% over your minimum PSU requirements, this allows the unit to not be as stressed.



This is the recommendation made, I would not go under a 700-750W Gold (or platinum) rated PSU, this can introduce many strange problems.

Before you do a complete swap, make sure all of the cables are plugged in, it's possible you bumped or forgot something after installing your PSU, check all of the lines directly from the PSU, and then check the motherboard connectors.

You should also unplug all unnecessary peripherals, gamepads, flash drives, leave only one monitor, your keyboard and mouse.

Click to expand...

I fixed it.. 😭

It really should have double checked, but my power bar died. I thought the PC itself was plugged in the power bar but it wasn't, just the monitors. The green light was showing on the power bar so I didn't assume that it was the issue but the moment I plugged in a different power bar, the monitors came to life.

I will take your advice about upgrading the power supply, though. When I checked to see what kind of power supply I needed, 550W was apparently enough and others told me it was too, but just to be safe I would like something stronger.

Thanks for the help!