AW3423DWF, black screen solution

Question

I am posting this with the hope that future users of the AW3423DWF who are experiencing random black screens or blackouts see this solution which they may not have tried. TL;DR: Try plugging your machine and monitor into completely seperate electrical power outlets. I started experiencing random black screens in my games and thought I had tried every possible method of troubleshooting, including: monitor has latest firmware installed Nvidia GPU has latest driver installed reverting to old drivers that used to work using a brand new HDMI cable doing a factory reset of the monitor disabled auto input source and set it to HDMI only different HDR profiles turning off HDR in the OSD disabling VRR disabling any overlays (Steam, Discord, Nvidia) switching between full screen and borderless windowed running at 1080p capping at 60Hz run monitor self-diagnostic test with no issues Nothing worked. I was using HDMI and could not test DP since my gaming laptop does not have the necessary port. One interesting detail to note was how the OSD became inoperable during the blackout, in that I could not open the OSD, and the blackout would cause the OSD to disappear if it was open at the time of the blackout. This led me to believe that the issue was not with my GPU or HDMI cable, as nothing was indicating an actual loss of signal from my laptop.After a whole day of troubleshooting and thinking I would have to resort to RMA, I hauled everything over to my brother's place to test his monitor on my laptop and my monitor on his desktop. We didn't even get that far - simply plugging up to his power outlets seemed to resolve the issue. This will not necessarily solve the issue for you if you are experiencing this problem. But if you have tried everything and nothing has worked, this may just be the solution for you. 🤞

JasonVN071dbe · Accepted Answer

Unfortunately I had tried all of the above - reverting to old drivers, turning off VRR/G-Sync etc. None of these resolved the issue for me. I could not try AMD as I did not have that option available.

In the two other main threads on the black screen issue (here and here) I could only find reference to external power factors in this comment. All I hope is that this thread draws attention to this solution, as it is very easy to skip over.

Since ensuring that the monitor is drawing from a stable power source separate from my gaming laptop, the black screen issue is completely resolved for me. (Nvidia RTX 3060 Laptop, latest drivers 576.02 as at time of post, VRR and HDR enabled)

Hopefully any driver and firmware issues get addressed. Good luck to you.

Stargazing Dog · Answer

This is a well known issue on Nvidia drivers after a certain revision. Nothing you can do would stop it from happening other than reverting to a rather old driver.

Unplugging the power to the monitor is the only fix.

Vanadiel · Answer

I found turning off gsync on 'compatible' monitors worked for me also. Or switching to an AMD card...

Stargazing Dog · Answer

@Vanadiel​ Yes, sorry. I should have mentioned that disabling Gsync also avoids the problem. Thanks.

Vanadiel · Answer

I never figured out what exactly the issue was, but I am leaning towards a driver issue on Nvidia's side. Ever since I switched to team red I have not experienced any black screens anymore.

user_d30725 · Answer

Just in case this doesn't resolve someone else's issue like me. I just changed the scaling option in NVIDIA control panel to perform scaling on the GPU for my two monitors rather than on the display and the issue has gone away for now. Suggest giving that a try.

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