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Comment by mhasbini | Hacker News Reader

A bit off topic: I'm facing an issue where a monitor works only when getting power (220v 60hz) from an outlet but not from an external power generator: ecoflow river pro (220v 60hz) as well.

It's the only appliance that doesn't work. It turns on normally but stays black (I use it in mirror mode).

Every hour or so it may show the correct content for a glance then it'll turn black.

I suspect the power supply source is not the real reason, maybe there's something causing interference with the cable?

I'm waiting to have a free weekend to check it out.

Edit: I'll check if it's related to this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32631017

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My guess would be the power supply is putting out something closer to a square wave than a sine wave and the monitor power supply is unable to turn that into DC.

I would think the same for some products but AFAIK those Ecoflow batteries are quite fancy.

I printed a document using one and generally printers hate running off generator power.

Laser printers don't like them. It's because the fuser is high amperage. Nothing to do with power quality.

They market it as a pure sine power supply: https://eu.ecoflow.com/products/river-portable-power-station...

Is there another appliance that I can test to see if that's the issue? I don't have an oscilloscope.

Edit: I just tested powering it from a UPS: It's flickering more now and when it show the correct content it stays for a second more then when powering from the ecoflow.

The monitor model is: BenQ GW2780-T.

It sounds very likely that this might be electromagnetic interference. The good part is that it’s easy to troubleshoot, just move the generator (or the monitor, whichever is lighter) far away, like in another room or outside.

You can also try a different, thicker cable, if you have one handy. The thicker cables are usually better shielded by having a sheath of tiny wires to catch that interference and conduct it to ground.

I just tested moving the ecoflow to another room (both door closed ~5m between the ecloflow and the monitor) and used an extension cable to power the monitor.

The issue is still happening.

Unfortunately I don't have a different HDMI cable at hand now. I'll test another cable as soon as I get my hands on one.

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