Greetings, Outlaws. I recently diverted all of my video through my 990 and am having an issue with my PC's video display. I'm not 100% sure it's the 990's fault, but the problem wasn't there before so it does point in that direction.

The PC is DVI out. I previously had it connected to the TV via a DVI to HDMI cable.

Uh...that was weird. I guess I hit a button. Anyway...

The PC is now connected to the 990 via DVI<->DVI cable. The 990 is connected to the TV via the DVI<->HDMI cable.

The PC is on all the time, but the TV and 990 of course are switched off between uses.

The problem: occasionally when I turn on the TV and the 990, setting the TV to the HDMI input and the 990 to the proper input, I get no video. There is audio, and I know the PC is still working because I can use the keyboard to reboot.

Any troubleshooting questions and suggestions are welcome. I had a similar issue with my Xbox a while back and I ended up having it repaired under warranty and the problem went away.

-Joe

Your probably have already checked this, but do you have any kind of power manager/screen saver setting on the PC that stops the video feed?

I have a similar problem, and power cycling my TV works every time.

73Bruin: I have a screensaver, but it doesn't turn the monitor off. Either way, I'd hope it would come back when I start moving the mouse/pressing keys.

sluggo: that's a good idea, I'll give it a go next time. That can't be good for the lamp, though :p

At least it doesn't happen that frequently. I am really curious to find the root of the problem though.

-Joe

More than likely, the root of the problem is HDMI. HDMI as a standard has plenty of handshaking issues, especially when you're talking about converting to/from other standards like DVI or displayport.

That was my assumption too. It was just curious that it started happening right after I installed the 990 - I've had the PC attached to the TV with the same DVI<->HDMI cable for several years prior without any issues. So I was hoping someone else had seen and fixed the same issue.

-Joe

The more you add to the HDMI chain, the more issues you're likely to have. For instance, my mac (DVI>HDMI) goes right to my tv perfectly, I don't have to adjust at all. However, when I add the pre/pro to the mix, the picture becomes blurry, and the picture is smaller than the screen. I've tried a bunch of solutions, to no avail.

It's a shame, because HDMI is pretty ubiquitous considering it's time in the market, and yet it just seems incomplete as a standard.

Well, it just did it again and a power cycle of the TV did not help. I had to reboot the PC.

I really don't want to tear apart the back of my system again

-Joe

Power cycling the 990 does fix the issue. Maybe it's the order in which things are turned on. I'll have to play with the remote settings and see.

-Joe

Update on this one: I just opened a ticket with the Outlaws, but figured I'd keep you guys posted. Here's what I sent them, so the backstory is all in one place:


Previously my PC's DVI out went directly to my TV with a DVI<->HDMI cable. This worked fine for several years.

When I installed the 990, I decided to use the Outlaw's video switching to make my life a little easier. So now the PC connects to the 990 with a DVI cable, and the 990 connects to my TV with the same DVI<->HDMI cable as before.

For a while, it worked most of the time. Occasionally when I first accessed that HDMI input on my TV and switched the 990 to the correct input, I would get no video. If I power cycled the 990, the video would appear.

Now, whenever I first switch over to the PC input I get the black screen, but power cycling the 990 does NOT work. I have to reboot the PC - which I know has not locked up, because I can use the Windows Key->t->r to reboot; i.e. I don't have to power cycle the PC.

The only difference I'm aware of is that I finally figured out how to get a true 720p signal to come out of the PC, which I would hope should make things better, not worse. I'm going to go back to the old screen resolution and see if that helps, but it's a less than optimal solution.

The PC is always left on.

-Joe

Hoping to raise this thread from the dead...I've got the same exact problem.

I wasn't using DVI switching previously; I was running an HDMI cable directly from my cable box into my Sony TV and running an optical audio cable into the 990. But yesterday I picked up an Apple TV unit that only has HDMI out and my Sony TV has only one HDMI input.

So I ran an HDMI to DVI cable from the cable box to one of the 990's DVI inputs and did the same for the Apple TV. I also ran an optical cable into the 990 from the Apple TV. Then I ran a DVI to HDMI cable into the Sony. I reconfigured the two video inputs with the menu, and all was good. Sound and audio from either input.

I left the system running for a few hours and came back to audio only; no picture. All settings are exactly as they were when everything was running correctly. I've power cycled all components, with no improvements.

I also tested HDMI to HDMI connections from the cable box to the Sony as well as the Apple TV to the Sony. Those work fine. I also tried moving the HDMI to DVI cables around to see if one was bad--no combination works, and it is highly unlikely that all three cables would go bad at once!

So it looks like the 990 is just not sending video out the DVI Output.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?!?