How to Troubleshoot Display or Video Issues on a Monitor

Your monitor may be experiencing an LCD display or video issue usually caused by either the monitor, video card (GPU) or video settings. The troubleshooting steps below can help resolve common issues. Some symptoms that indicate an LCD display or video issue are a blank or black screen, color fade, fuzzy, blurry, distorted or stretched image, geometric distortion, light leakage or light bleeding, flickering, horizontal or vertical lines, light or dark patches, dead pixel or bright pixel. To learn more, expand and follow each troubleshooting step below.

Verify display or video issue on a known-good monitor

It is essential to verify if the problem is inherent with the monitor, video card (GPU) or video settings on your PC. A straightforward way to identify this is to connect the PC to a known-good external monitor or TV and ensure that the display (S-video, VGA, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort) cables are firmly connected to the video ports on the PC and the monitor.

To learn more about connecting your PC to a monitor or TV, refer to the CyberPowerPC knowledge-base article How do I Connect a Monitor or TV to a PC?.

If the issue persists on the other monitor it may be due to the video card (GPU) or video settings and not the monitor, proceed to the step Verify display or video issue in Windows Safe Mode. Else proceed to the next step.

Check for physical damages

Performance issues may occur if there is any type of damage caused to the display cables or the LCD screen. LCD screen may show symptoms like LCD screen stops working, work intermittently, color mismatch, flickering, display horizontal or vertical lines, etc. if there is a damage to the display cables or the LCD screen.

Verify display or video issue in Windows Safe Mode

Windows Safe Mode allows us to identify if the issue is related to the operating system, video settings, device drivers or a 3rd party software. To learn more about how to boot your CyberPowerPC system into Safe Mode, refer to the CyberPowerPC knowledge-base article How to Boot to Safe Mode in Windows 10.

If the issue persists in Safe Mode, proceed to the next step. Else, proceed to Perform a Windows System Restore.

Update the video card (GPU) driver, monitor driver, chipset driver & BIOS

CyberPowerPC recommends updating the device drivers and BIOS as part of your scheduled update cycle. These device drivers and BIOS updates may contain feature enhancements or changes that will help keep your system software current and compatible with other system modules (hardware and software) as well as increased stability.

It is essential to update the following device drivers for optimal video performance and to resolve common video issues:

• BIOS
• Chipset driver
• Video Card (GPU) driver
• Monitor driver

These drivers will depend on the specific make and model of your video card (GPU) however, most modern video cards (GPU) offer universal drivers that are backwards compatible. This means the latest graphics drivers for your video card brand (NVIDIA or AMD) is likely to work for most previous generations. 

1. First, you will need to identify the GPU brand of your graphics card, this refers to the GPU chip itself and not the manufacturer of the graphics card. This is likely either NVIDIA or AMD. If you are unsure, contact CyberPowerPC support and they can help you identify your GPU.
   1. If it is an NVIDIA GPU then you can download the latest graphics drivers here:
      https://www.geforce.com/drivers
   2. If it is an AMD GPU you can download the latest drivers here:
      https://www.amd.com/en/support

Download and install Microsoft Windows updates

Windows updates can support your Windows operating system in many ways. Windows updates can solve specific problems, provide protection from malicious attacks, or even add new features to the operating system.

How to run Windows Updates on Microsoft Windows 10?

1. Right-click Start and click Settings.
2. In the Settings panel, click Update & Security.
3. In the left panel, select Windows Update.
4. On the right panel, click Check for updates.
5. Restart the PC after downloading and installing the updates.

Change the video or display settings and adjust the brightness

Display settings like brightness, refresh rate, resolution and power management may affect the performance of your monitor. Changing the display settings can help resolve several types of video issues.

Article Version DK.01