Really obscure display issue if PC left idle overnight

Hardware GPU
1

Alright, figured I gotta ask somewhere if anyone has any clue what so ever what this might be.

So, first off, my PC functions more or less flawlessly in normal use - I can use it for 12 hours straight, I can play games for 12 hour straight, I can watch cat videos for 12 hours straight, it doesn't matter, it doesn't miss a beat and works great.

Enter the bizarre: If I leave my computer on overnight, when I come back and wake up the screen (the PC itself never sleeps), the image is distorted. Like a weird crosshatched distortion - but I can see the mouse moving, applications running - the PC is technically "working" - I just can't see a damn thing. Problem disappears if I restart.

I've had this happen maybe a handful of times now - and it ONLY happens if I leave it alone for a very long time. And heck, the computer isn't even "idle" necessarily, it might be running a backup, rendering a video, whatever, doesn't seem to matter. When I come back and wake up the screen after 8-9-10 hours or whatever, the image is distorted until I reboot. However, it does seem to function just fine otherwise - it's just the image on the screen is all fudged up. But the computer is still happily doing whatever it was doing.

I can't really isolate what the problem is. Anyone got a hunch what the problem might be, or observed a similar problem?

Not sure it matters but the specs are as follows;

Win 7 x64
780Ti x2 in SLI
Intel i7 4770k
32GB RAM (Corsair Dominator Platinum)
Asus ROG Swift monitor
- Hefty custom water cooling loop, nothing gets above ~50*C under normal use, GPUs never go above 50, ever. Doubt temperatures are any cause for concern.

Nothing out of the ordinary per se. Drivers are up to date, yadda yadda, the obvious things are in order. I have tried a full Nvidia driver cleanup and re-install.

Absolutely no idea what could cause this, myself.

2

Might i suggest reseating the cards and your PC memory... Check for leaks again... you never know... Uhmm what kinda Thermal grease did you use on your graphics card. Select diamond greases will wreck your die.. also the Electrical capacitance of AS5 MIGHT cause issues.. it doesnt conduct electricity but provided enough electricity in that capacitative barrier.. that might cause an issue over time.... Check your GPUS and maybe consider driver screw ups and screen power settings
Can you get a picture of this situation

Also could be your GPUS.. consider RMA if they are new

3

i assume you have the newest nvidia drivers installed?

you could offcourse do a few easy tests your self.
take one gpu out, and test with just 1 gpu, let it on over night, and see if the issue is still there.
If so, then do the same thing, but then with the other gpu.

issue still there, then its most likely something diffrent.
Check for bios updates for the motherboard.
Next to that, also check some windows energy settings, maybe the energy settings, automaticly shut off a HDD after a period of inactivity, this is an option in powersaving mode.

4

Edit: i moved this topic to GPU section generaly, because it might have something to with that.

6

I am very curious to see your solution.. please post it here @Mythricia

7

I'll just bulk respond to the above posts here;

It's not really a problem with the hardware itself, like I explained in the original post, the computer does "work" perfectly fine, there's no cause for concern there. It's just that after many hours of being left idle it displays a distorted image. Which is just such an obscure problem, which is why I posted it here! I've been building and tech-supporting PCs for a good decade and I've never seen anything like it.

@Chronos I actually do turn off the monitor by it's own power button when I leave the computer, so even though I agree that would be a good place to start testing things, I already do that by default. I actually went and checked the "Power Settings" in the control panel, including the advanced ones and I have all the power saving or automatic shutdown features disabled - no PCIe link state stuff, nothing that really shuts down over time.

And yeah reinstalling Windows is definitely an option, but I just desperately don't want to do that. I have a very non-typical setup and there's a huge amount of software and configuration that would have to be re-done if I reinstalled, it's pretty mindblowing, so I'm trying to figure out a way to test that theory without actually reinstalling anything.

Perhaps a separate SSD that I switch to temporarily with just Windows and drivers installed? A bit of a cludge but it'd work.

Interestingly, after I left the PC on overnight after posting the original topic, the distorted image problem was not present, but it's been many times before after leaving it on overnight. Granted, I very rarely leave my PC on in that fashion so I don't have that many sample points...

@MisteryAngel & @R00tz31820 Re-seating my cards is unfortunately not an option. It's a huge custom water loop in a relatively small Corsair 750D - the result is that the tube runs are so tight that I can't physically remove the graphics cards nor the CPU without tearing down the water loop (physically cutting several tubes). Which is a weekend project at the minimum, and since I work at this PC as well I can't really do that now. Besides I highly doubt it has any bearing on the problem, a physical problem like that would hinder my PC in normal use - which as I said in the OP, is not the case, it works flawlessly in-use. I can run benchmarks for 10 hours straight and it doesn't care. For some reason it does care when left alone for 10 hours.

Makes me think it's Windows doing something weird with trying to enter some kind of standby or something to that effect - even though it's not supposed to (no sleep, no hibernation etc is allowed). But then again, that still doesn't make sense, because it happens even if the PC is actively doing something while I'm away. It's like a standby mode triggered by lack of user input (mouse, keyboard). But that's all disabled....

Bizarre. Was hoping someone had seen the exact symptom before.

9

I would go chronos' way first but if it doesnt work... You probably should go with @MisteryAngel and I's methods :D