[Jeraden]

A while back I started leaving my HTPC on 24/7 as I now use it for more than just watching stuff on my projector, its turned into a general media device and I record using sagetv on it. It has a radeon 9600 video card and I'm connecting over DVI. My problem is, everytime I turn on my projector now, I get no signal until I reboot the PC. Its quite inconvenient now because I generally have it recording prime-time shows from 8pm to 11pm, so if I want to watch a movie with it during those hours I have to reboot it and then I miss part of the show I was recording until it comes back up.


And it only happens with DVI-D, using DVI-A/VGA still works fine. I have no other monitor or anything connected over the VGA inputs, only DVI is connected. The PC is not being powered off in between projector uses, its still on during the whole time. The problem is, the PC doesn't "see" the 8700 as connected. If I VNC into it, I can see that it shows no FPD or monitor in the display properties.


Anyone else run into this issue. Or better yet, does anyone else leave their PC on 24/7 and is still able to power up their projector and get a signal over DVI?

 

[loo_hoo_ser]

Did you check to make sure your power savings for your monitor is not enabled for your DVI display? I had this problem with my Sony and I turned off the power saving mode by disabling the "turn off monitor after X minutes" on my HTPC.

 

[yegulalp]

I tried connecting a DVI cable to my PC while it was running and got a picture with no problem on my BenQ 8700. I have an older nVidia GForce 3 card.

 

[Jeraden]

Good suggestion about the power saving, I'll have to try that tonight. I'm not sure if I ever looked to see what the windows power saving settings are at.

 

[wm]

Jeraden,


When you VNC into the PC, can you re-enable the monitor?


I have similar problems with ATI cards when I switch projectors. The ATI cards will loose the connection if a DVI connected projector is disconnected or even in some cases powered off. I have found this to work: right click on the desktop, select "Properties", then "Settings" tab. Is the projector still displayed as an active monitor? If so, try unclicking the "Extend my desktop ..." button, click "Apply", then click the "Estend my desktop" button again, and "Apply" again. This may re-establish the connection, it usually works for me.


William

 

[Jeraden]

Ok, I checked and indeed, I had it set to power off monitor after 20 minutes. We'll see if that makes a difference. I have some stuff recording now so I'll wait till later to test it out.


When the monitor is gone, if I VNC in, the display properties show that no monitor is connected at all, which is what I think the problem is. Its like after a while it realizes there is no monitor and never detects when the monitor is turned back on. The "extend" box is always greyed out since I only ever have 1 monitor (the projector) hooked up.

When I used remote desktop instead of VNC, I occasionally had success by remote desktop'ing in, which would log out the PC locally. Then exit remote desktop. The local pc would be at the login screen. If I pressed tab a few times, it would "kick start" the display. But now that I just use VNC instead I can't seem to ever get it to kick start no matter what buttons I push.

 

[Jeraden]

Actually, I did get it working with the display properties in VNC. Not sure exactly what I did though.

Went into advanced properties and picked Displays. I said above it showed no monitors as being active, but that wasn't true. It did show the 8700 as connected but the 8700 never detected the computer.

I clicked the red button in the corner of the FPD (whatever that does), which apparently turned on the normal VGA monitor and then it thought I had 2 displays connected. So I clicked the button on that one to turn it off. Then it changed my monitor type from Default monitor to Plug and Play monitor. Then I noticed I was getting a picture. So not exactly sure what step it was, but I was able to kick start it via the display properties somehow without rebooting. So thanks>

 

[theirishgonzo]

my problem is i need my benq8700+ to be on to enable dual montor setup so if the benq is not on befor i boot the pc i have to turn off the pc

 

[loo_hoo_ser]

Jeraden,


I am not quite following your problem here. It sounded like if you leave your HTPC unattended long enough, and maybe even turning off the display device, that it would not recognize it after you turned it back on or whenever you returned to your HTPC afer a period of time.


My concern is whether you found the root cause of why your computer is "forgetting" that its attached to a display device - which is why I mentioned to check the power saving mode so that it never "disconnects" your display device by trying to turn it off.


So, let us know what it ended up being - what is causing your HTPC to forget about the display device? Was the the power saving mode?

 

[sat_uplinker]

I had a similar problem with my HX1 and HTPC. The PC is connected through a DVI switch, and when booted up without the PJ on, I would get no signal on the PJ. If I connected with VNC, the desktop would be at 640x480, and lock up. I fixed this by using a VGA terminator on the unused VGA port. It fools the PC into thinking a monitor is connected to that port, and it allows it to boot at the correct resolution. I sometimes still have the problem where the PC won't fire up the DVI interface if the PJ is not on first, but at least the VNC works correctly.

 

[Jeraden]

Yeah, my problem was that the only way my projector would ever detect a signal would be for me to have the projector on first, then turn on the PC. So If the PC was already on, I'd have to turn the projector on and then reboot the computer.


Well, I'm not sure that the powersaving settings made any difference. Its working now that when I turn the projector on it gets a signal fine, provided I don't reboot the computer inbetween attempts. If I ever boot up the computer without the projector turned on, then the projector does not immediately get a signal. I have to go through the steps listed above (going into display properties and deactiving and then re-activating the "FPD" monitor). After that it works fine until I reboot again without the projector on. Since I can VNC in, its not a big deal. I'm still not sure why it fails to work without intervention.


I do have a vga cable connected to the vga port as well, but its not hooked up to anything on the other end. It didn't work even when it wasn't connected though. Since my current "workaround" involves activing the vga monitor even though its not connected, not sure if it would even work without the extra cable attached.


As long as I really never reboot now its going fine. I think the reason I started noticing it a lot more is that once I started leaving the PC on all the time, I wasn't using the projector as much. Plus I was tweaking stuff on the pc a lot and rebooting more frequently (since sagetv server has a nasty habit of crashing a lot on me). So its possible I was just always rebooting in between projector uses. Now I've gotten most of my tweaking done and don't have to reboot as much, plus I'm watching more movies again now so I'm not running into as many between-uses reboots. So anyways, I have a livable workaround but I still don't understand why the projector can't detect the PC in certain situations.

 

[Ash Sharma]

Could be a EDID Issue - I had a similar problem with my 8700 recieving signal through a DVI swithcer - HTPC, Voom and DVI DVD Player. The DVI signal would not lock in to the 8700 whenswitching sources.

I bought a DVI Detective Box from Extend IT and it fixed the problem.