Video issue - resetting window positions
I can only imagine that it's an issue with my new video card, or something I did when setting it up. It's not fatally bad, like if the solution is to return the video card, then I'll just live with it, but if there is an easy fix, I'd like to know it. The issue is thus:
I have two monitors plugged into my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. It works as expected most of the time, but at random-seeming times (maybe about twice per day (and not totally random because I've noticed it only does it when I'm at the PC, it's never done it while I'm away)) the monitors go black for less than a second, and when they return, all of my windows (and my taskbar) have been moved to Display 1, and I have to spend a few seconds moving everything back where it is supposed to be.
As I said, not a big deal, just a minor annoyance, but if there is a setting gone weird somewhere that will fix this, that would be sweet. My googling has failed me on this issue, only able to find people with much more serious issues than mine.
Comments
Check for driver updates to be sure. My 1070 did similar until I made sure to update. If possible, I'd also try switching the monitor cables and make sure its not that.
Last guess would be something with the display connection in the card itself. Its pretty obviously thinking you only have one display when it does that.
Are you using DisplayPort?
I am and have seen similar things over reboots. Related? I'm on AMD though, not NVIDIA
I am using displayport One DVI monitor and one VGA monitor both using little dongles to convert to DP because that's all that this card has.
Okay. I suspect you have a failing dongle (lol) or a bad cable.
DisplayPort is designed to be a hotplugged connector, so its designers assumed that whatever was on the DisplayPort display should be moved to the remaining displays when the DP display gets disconnected. The alternative, like DVI, is to leave the contents of that window orphaned on an unseen surface. Sure, the window and icon positions are saved, but now you can't get to them.
So if the DisplayPort cable is cutting out, the OS is following the specs and moving everything on that display to the monitors that are left.
At work we had a similar issue that was related to a Windows patch, I'll have to look up all the details. We run dual monitors on hundreds of desktops but we are just running standard Intel Graphics, same thing would happen monitors would blink off for a couple seconds, when they come back up entire desktop is re positioned to a single monitor. We actually found that certain applications would trigger this flaw, Excel was one, if a spreadsheet extended across monitors it was repeatable. If I remember I think we pulled a specific windows update from our image and that was the cure.
So, I double checked, and I was remembering my set-up wrong. I didn't get an adapter for the DVI because the card does have a DVI, but the VGA is adapted to DP. Would it be better if both actually were DP, or does that matter?
Doesn't matter. A native connection is always best. Adapters can be funky.
Does the DVI monitor end up with all the icons and taskbar on it when this happens?
So, some unintentional troubleshooting: I've been without internet since Thursday, and so only been able to work on things that don't require internet, and in that time, the monitors have not done this funky resetting, leading me to wonder if the fault lay with a bit of software that I haven't been using for the last few days.
I would malware scan the computer with Malwarebytes antimalware free.