I have had this happen on my Viewsonic vx2025wm like 10-12 times. I have fixed it in the past by using a SVGA mon in the other port and switch to dual display then changing it back to main display and so on………

When I called Viewsonic they ASSURED me it was my video card I must have spent 4-5 h on the phone with them and Nvidia at least a couple of times. Now I know it was the Viewsonic’s fault. And they were so” Don’t call us about YOUR video card problems are you stupid ?”

How can they not know about such a simple fix??

First and last viewsonic product for me.

I have my replacement unit. This one is definitely a refurb – the case has a few marks on it, it came in pillow wrap, not the original packaging. But that doesn’t bother me too much.

Firstly, zero dead pixels again, which is good. It would make sense if they reserved perfect panels only for replacement – it’s what I’d do, I wouldn’t want to eat another courier fee for the inevitable disgruntled callback.

The EDID says this is a VX2255wm-3 (not wmb), but on examination, so does the EDID from the one I just replaced. This one has a lower serial number too. Once again, I hope that it had the same problem and they fixed it permanently this time.

Ah well. I still have more than 2.5 years left on the warranty!

But now it’s failed again, last week, permanently. It’s definitely the EDID. The only event I can correlate with it’s failure is that perhaps I upgraded my nvidia graphics driver on the same day it failed.

The port itself still works – I have a second panel of the same spec (but a different manufacturer) on the desk, and if you boot the Viewsonic on VGA, you can swap the cable from the other panel to the Viewsonic, select the digital port, and see the picture.

I was sensible enough to back up the EDID from the monitor the instant I got the replacement unit, but this hasn’t really helped.

I’ve now tried (unsuccessfully)

1) The two-port-shuffle trick from the thread above.

2) DVI_Recover (ddcw.exe)

The DVI port just doesn’t even register as existing. It won’t write the EDID for the VGA port either, which it reports as containing nothing but zero.

I also tried using NVFlash as recommended somewhere to set –protectoff – but I think this applies to the graphics card firmware and not the monitor EDID.

The real difficulty with using this util is that the monitor won’t start up from DVI – it may not have enough active parts to flash the EDID in sleep mode. I tried an automated boot disk with a copy of the EDID and booted it blind but that didn’t work.

2) Powerstrip

I shelled out £22 for the full version on the off chance that it would help. After ddcw.exe failed, I thought I might have more luck with the monitor in a powered state. Since you can swap the DVI cable from a another monitor to it and see a picture, that’s pretty good evidence that the monitor is powered up and the DVI port is selected.

My plan was to swap the DVI cable from my second unit (as above), and then get Powerstrip to write my handy backed up EDID to my Viewsonic.

Alas, Powerstrip can’t even find an EDID EEPROM on the unit, which fits with the idea that the whole EDID unit has failed in some way. At least Powerstrip helped me get my native 1680×1050 resolution back over VGA by writing me a custom resolution driver ; the DDC capability seems to be based on EDID also, and the EDID for the VGA port is blank, so I was getting only fuzzyvision.

Happily the nice warranty lady (in a native call centre, hooray) was pleased to get me a new one couriered, so I should see it tomorrow.

We’ll see how long this one lasts.

It’s failed again.

Here we go again.

As you can tell from the smiley, I’m a happy bunny.

Courier arrived (1000 – yeah, right, more like 1230), dropped off, picked up.

I’m looking at what is probably a refurb, but an otherwise perfect unit. Zero subpixel defects (1), working webcam, and yes, working DVI port.

Given all the horror stories about DVI ports I’ve found on the web the last couple of days, from more brands than just ViewSonic, I’m not put off buying ViewSonic again, because at least I know they have a decent warranty service.

(You definitely bought your monitor AFTER March ‘08, DIDN’T YOU)

(1) ViewSonic warranty covers zero WHOLE pixel defects and up to 4 subpixels, or a maximum of three dark or three bright.