Strange multi monitor problem, Any ideas?

[drnick5]

We have a client with a 3 monitor setup that started having some strange behavior. We are being told this has happened since it was set up, but it was never reported by the users.

3 monitors, 1 running off intel graphics, the other 2 running off a gtx 1050 gpu. 2 are using HDMI, 1 is using displayport. System is a kaby lake i5, 32GB ram. Win 10 Pro Creators update.

When 1 user logs in, everything is fine. But, if a 2nd user logs in, the "main" monitor goes black as soon as you type in your password and press enter. If you turn the power off on the monitor and then flip it back on, it comes back without issue, but that seems to be the only way to get it back short of a reboot.

Trying to replicate this in a remote shows all 3 displays just fine, so I was initially leaning towards a hardware problem.
i tried swapping the monitors to different ports on the graphics cards, but this just moves the problem to a different screen. So it doesn't seem to be a faulty monitor.

I made sure all graphics drivers are up to date, this didn't help.

Right now they are getting by with simply power cycling the monitor, but thats a short term fix until I can hopefully figure this out.

Any ideas? I realize this is pretty specific, at this point i'm more curious than anything.

 

[phaZed]

It would be interesting to know which video adapter the "blanking" screen is hooked into. It sounds like it would be the Intel card. No idea what's causing your problem but I'm betting on something bizarre (Still could be drivers!) dealing with using the NVIDIA and Intel at the same time and Power Management.

I say Power Management because turning the monitor off and on causes the adapter to report changes back to the system, causing the adapter to work. Have you by chance run Snappy Driver Installer on this system, making sure to include MOBO controller drivers? BIOS update could help if that's avail.

 

[drnick5]

Tried swapping back and forth between the GPU's and it seems to happen on either, to which ever monitor is set as the primary.

Running Snappy driver might not be a bad idea either. i'll look over the other drivers in there and see if any need updating.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

These users are logging in at the machine, one at a time right? Not trying to have two users logged in at the same time like a terminal server? Is it just one account that is having the issue? Have you tried creating a new test account to see what happens?

 

[drnick5]

Yes, users are logging in 1 at a time. (not using remote desktop or anything). User A may be there in the morning, and then go out on the road and forget to log out. after 15 min the screen locks. User B will get there, and log in under their own account, while User A's account is still logged in.

 

[Porthos]

User B will get there, and log in under their own account, while User A's account is still logged in.

Turn off fast user switching.

 

[Kirby]

I have seen similar issues in Windows 10 a few times. It always seems to be the main monitor which doesn't turn on at first.

One thing you can try is, once you get the main monitor up and going, right-click and bring up the monitor settings, then MOVE THAT to one of the other monitors. Reboot to reproduce the problem and when you bring up the settings it should be on one of the working screens so that you can dink with the settings and maybe perma-fix it.

I installed 2 computers with 2 monitors and both did this on the main display. I had to disconnect that monitor, reboot so the other monitor was main, hot-plug in the HDMI and, if I remember, set it as the second monitor instead. This was with computers where both monitors were using the onboard Intel graphics, one DVI, the other HDMI. Asus Z270 motherboards, I think, with i5 7th gen CPUs, 610 or 620 graphics.