TV (PC) Screen Flickers Goes Black Snow Noise Audio Disappears - When Turning House Lights ON/OFF

[Ransome]

Whenever I turn the fluorescent lights ON or OFF my the screen flickers, show random artifacts, white 'snow' noise, goes black - then returns after several seconds.
Also the audio usually gets cut off momentarily as the screen gets distorted.

The issues seems to have started a week ago. Thismonth our damned power company in Israel had several full electric failures in my neighborhood. Specifically power drops and returns instantly!! The worse most dangerous kindn of power failures. It happened at least once a week and like 5 times in a single day.


This happens with numerous random house lights, not all, and not always the same button or on every press. But some switches are like 80% to cause the flickering. It happened to me twice by it's own once.

The distortions has a chance to occur on turning off as well as turning on, and it is worse when pressing multiple light switches simultaneously.

Tried everything including altering the electric feed source, checking some of the lights.

I am totally clueless and desperate for a solution.

This only happens when I use the TV screen connected through a Pioneer VSX823 AV ReceiverHome Cinema. It happens regardless of GPU load.
It DOES NOT occur when I set my PC to display to my PC Monitor.
Tried changing to a different HDMI cables but no use. Both cables are high qyality 10 meter cables. Never had this issue and Ihave this setup for over a year now (SLI since May with no issues).

This doesn't seem to occur with my PS4 or PS3 or when no device is turned on.

I am afraid that if this continue those flickers and distortions would negatively affect or damage hardware (TV,GPUs,PSU etc).

--------My specs:
X2 Gigabyte G1 Gaming Geforce GTX 980 SLI
Core i5-3570K (running @ 4.2 Ghz auto voltage OC)
Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard
16 GB of G.Skill Ripjaw-X DDR3 1600Mhz (x.m.p profile)
SSD 256GB Crucial M4
HD Western Digital Black 2TB
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Case: Corsair CC600T Graphite White Special Edition
PSU: Corsair 850AX Gold
Running Windows 10 64bit. Pro
Monitor: Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q 2560 x 1440p 144 MHz + Nvidia G-Sync.
Secondary Screen: 55" TV: Samsung UA55D6400 TV1080p 60 MHz
Connected via Pioneer VSX-823-K AV Receiver

 

[junkeymonkey]

sounds like low current ?? when you got something running then kick something on the power dips too low for a moment below what it takes to keep whats all ready on -on ??

all I can say is find a knowledgeable electrician with a meter to check things out ??

that matbe cheaper then something goes bad wrong and your replaceing all your electronics

 

[Ransome]

This is a very old 1 story house. About 26 year old if not more. Replacing the electric grid is a nightmare I hope it won't come to this but even if it does, we have no idea how to pinpoint and analyze the problem's source

One big problem is that 6 rooms/parts of our house are connected to the same circuit line. But never had this issue before!

I have also read online about similar issues, people suggest EMF waves from flourcent lights, wiring issues, current leaks, earthening problems and more.

I have updated my post above btw, check it out please.

My father used to be an electrician and knows a thing or two, he is no expert though and have none of the advanced tools used today. He thinks maybe its too much power, earthening gets clashed with the 'zero' or an electric leak.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Since the problem seems to occur only when you go through the Pioneer receiver that indicates that it is being affected by your lighting. Your father should have a voltmeter to measure the voltage at the outlet it is connected to when you turn the lights on. It is possible that the ballasts for the lights have been damage by the outages. You could try a good line conditioner/filter on the receiver. It might help.
The receiver itself may have been damaged by these outages. A battery backup power conditioner for av gear might be a good investment since you have an ongoing problem.

 

[Ransome]

Since the problem seems to occur only when you go through the Pioneer receiver that indicates that it is being affected by your lighting. Your father should have a voltmeter to measure the voltage at the outlet it is connected to when you turn the lights on. It is possible that the ballasts for the lights have been damage by the outages. You could try a good line conditioner/filter on the receiver. It might help.
The receiver itself may have been damaged by these outages. A battery backup power conditioner for av gear might be a good investment since you have an ongoing problem.

First of all thank you.
I don't think if the AVR has been damaged and I believe the socket itself isn't at fault, here is why:
I have tried to connect both my entire home theater system (TV, AVR, consoles, Subwoofer, cable box) as well as the PC setup (which is in another room) to an external current source (a socket in the yard) with a long extention cable. While a few days ago it seem to prevent all the flickering, today I tested it again and it happens with external power.
As for the AVR itself - my PS4 and PS3 are also connected to the same home theater setting (as mentioned above) and there are no distortions when messing with the lighting.

As for the ballasts - I assume you talk about the part in the flourcent light that controls and adjusts voltages - well the issue occurs with many random lights. Some are more prone to cause the flicker. Its crazy it lights in my AVR room were causing no problems up till yesterday (while others did), now they constantly distort the image and sound.

Just letting you know my thoughts and findings here... will talk to my father about what you said.

My dad has no voltmeter unfortunately, but we will try to find an expert with the proper tools. This is no easy task though.....


Edit: Dunno if it means anything but I downloaded a phone app Ultimate EMF Detector, to measure EmF near my pc and AVR:
Magnetic Field B:
PSU: 60-80 micotesla - with spikes to 110-140.

12-15 amp per meter
AVR: 60 micotesla
12.9 ampers per meter

This is a phone app nothing professional or accurate.

 

[Ransome]

Edit: kitchen oven in the next room (outside the circuit line) possibly made a flicker distortion now. Think it also happened this noon.
Still the culprit 99.99% of the time are many flourcent light switches.

Btw: tried disabling SLI and GPU leds didn't help.

EDIT: confirmed on the kitchen's oven: turning it on at 180 degrees Celsius made the screen flicker and go black the moment the oven startup heating up.
Reducing the temps from 180c to 90c MADE MY PC CRASH! I have no idea if it's a coincidence or not, but I was playing MGSV quitting to ACC when I changed the temps to 90c, and the PC crashed and rebooted automatically.
Damn this

 

[junkeymonkey]

almost the samr here ? the socket my computet stuff is on is on the same line as the bathroom so if all the lights in it are on and wife firse up that 200000w hair dryer = issues as well

so I just went to hw store grabbed a roll of there better gauge house wire and all and just ran a ine to the computer room from the breaker - now all my stuff is on its own private line and breaker maybe cost me 50 -75 bucks and 3 hrs of my time to run and install ??

at first I just ran it along the house [out side] like a extension cord [outdoor use wiring ] until I had a good day to try to run it properly

 

[Ransome]

almost the samr here ? the socket my computet stuff is on is on the same line as the bathroom so if all the lights in it are on and wife firse up that 200000w hair dryer = issues as well

so I just went to hw store grabbed a roll of there better gauge house wire and all and just ran a ine to the computer room from the breaker - now all my stuff is on its own private line and breaker maybe cost me 50 -75 bucks and 3 hrs of my time to run and install ??

at first I just ran it along the house [out side] like a extension cord [outdoor use wiring ] until I had a good day to try to run it properly

Didn't work.
Tried exactly that: I connected both my PC setup and my home theater setup with a heavy duty extention cable directly to the breaker (the electric cabin outside the house). Meaning I fed them both with electricity OUTSIDE any inner current circuit.
Tried switching some of the trouble-making lights on and off - and the problem persists.

I have been trying to solve this for weeks, every weekend wasted, every day another frustration. I am at my wits end here!

Even though the problem only appears while the computer transmits via the 10 meter HDMI cable to the receiver that transmits to the TV: I am 99.99% sure this is NOT a problem with the PC, the AV Receiver or the TV. It seems that the PC-AVR-TV setup is more sensitive to these current drops/leaks/EMI/grounding issues.

I have sent my Pioneer VSX823 AV-Receiver to the Pioneer importers' lab in Israel (official warranty here) - they had the product for a week and found 0 problems with it. The claim the AVR is 100% fine. So they didn't fix anything nor replaced any part.

I can pretty much confirmed the PC itself isn't an issue since:
0 problems with / without SLI in games. Snow/black screen/artifacts issue occur with and without SLI.
Issue occur even though PC is on idle desktop.
Issue occur without and without any overclock.
I tried connecting the HDMI cable directly to the 2ndry GPU - and the problems persist = which confirms there is no problem with the GPU not with its HDMI output.
Tried replacing the PSU power cable.

Other things I've tried:
Replacing AVR power cable.
Bought a brand new 10 meter HDMI cable, its a good high quality one with outer mesh protection.

Other things that causes issues: connecting/disconnecting some devices at some sockets - particularly an Air conditioning unit that's rarely in use.

We don't know what to do, no electrician found anything or knows what he is doing enough to find a solution. No one knows the source of the problem.
The electrician that was here checked every sockets and switch that caused problems, none show any short-circuit or issue. He also checked the voltage we have on the house and its 230V as it should be.

If anyone has an idea to find and solve these problems - PLEASE HELP!

 

[junkeymonkey]

I would check the power company just seems like a too low voltage thing to me the breaker box feeds from the main power line so I would think you should have all you need off one dedicated leg from it ???

you should get a expert from the power company or a electrician to test and inspect

 

[Ransome]

Hey, just wanted to add that there has been some progress but I am still at a stalemate with this issue!

I have swapped most of the problematic fluorescent lights and lightbulbs - with new white /yellow LED light bodies and bulbs. Remarkbly the issues from switching said lights on/off stopped.

I had an educated guess and it turned out to be correct. This is probably due to the reasons LED lights don't have a ballast (and resistor) that spikes-up the voltage and causes a lot of emf as well. LED also uses less power, so all in all it is good for the entire house.
They are still rather rare and expensive but in time we would replace all of the fluor' lights with LEDs.

But that's not solving the problem - that's avoding it.

So we discovered another issue: very often whenever you plug or unplug electric appliances like another PC, a fan, the oven, an AC unit, a network switch or modem -
the screen would flicker, go black, show snow and the sound will disappear for a few seconds. Sometimes it wiul just be monor artifacts while other times it would take really long for the screen to come back.

So yeah connecting electric devices seem to 'suck power' or cause some power leak or interference perhaps...

I have had several electricians come here, got another one now testing the power box.

It's really hard getting an expert from the lousy power company here.....
They are the sole power company in the country and they don't give a damn how much damage they are causing. Getting them over the phone and having someone come here is downright impossible and would probably cost a fortune.

 

[Arklor]

Sounds like this is your power providers problem, a transformer from the main grid that provides power to the housings in your neighbourhood is probably overloaded and needs an upgrade or replacement.