Monitor settings randomly change

Hi Chethan,

Thanks for your message. Unfortunately I just found a workaround for this annoying issue which started for me after February 8th 2024. What I can tell you is that if another application is looking for a pogram (.exe) or dynamic library (.dll) in the directory it cannot execute it. The effects of this I do not know. I am sorry for that. Also your question about the purpose of the HP Telemetry directory (and folder) I cannot answer.

I have had some contact with HP Support and there might be a change that my research and workaround will make it to the software developers by which we might get some answers. Sorry that this is all I can answer to you.

I am still without unexpectely changes to 'racing mode' on my Philips 34" monitor model 346E2C.

Hi Huub,

Lately after renaming the folder for second time I started observing

1.Monitor suddenly showed a dark screen like it turned off for a moment

2.Black boxes started appearing specially while browing websites which was temporay like a glitch

3.Mouse loading icon near the cursor and somewhat glitch monitor now and then not much

so I renamed back to original and did not see this later.

Could you please tell if this has to do anything with changing the folder name.

What was the actual purpose of telemetry folder and .exe

For now i have settled for gamer2

Hi Todd,
Thanks for your input. My workaround is still providing me the solution I was looking for. My workaround has been described at large in one of the other replies on thread. In my view 99,9% related to the undocumented HP Telemetry software.

Michael, my attempt to report the issue to HP ends in the following: "We are convinced it's a problem with the monitor. We can reset you laptop to factory defaults which will erase all data from your system".

As a former HP employee I have serious problem with such a statement. I might try another equivalent laptop (my wife has one too - exactly the same) to see if the problem occurs also when I connect tje {Philips monitor).

...

Everyone in this thread has a different HP make/model and a Philips monitor. We've more than proven that this HP-Philips combination is toxic and doesn't (through lack of complaints) extend to non-HP devices. The proximity of this issue to the HP update, coupled with our ability to resolve the issue by manually disabling the HP update, only solidifies this conclusion.

If HP is suggesting that all Philips monitors are suddenly "defective" because they do not operate properly with HP's new software, then that is simply short-sighted and ridiculous.

OK, For those interested: During the past 48 hours exchanged information (through WhatsApp) with HP Customers Support. At some point I was trasferred from an AI agent to a human agent. I will spare you all the details but the call is closed now.

Solution (actually a workaround it should be called) as per my suggestion change the name of the HP Telemetry Collectors directory (sorry I started with Unix in 1976) C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034 to something different. In that way no other process will start any .exe of .dll file in there. As a sidemark. Whenever you install an optional update from Windows Update named HP Inc. - SoftwareComponent xx.x.x, you better check the directory name. This happened to me earlier this week and the 'racing mode' was back again case the entire directory came back on my system

I was triggered by the following error messages in one of the logfiles:
Error :VcpCodeDataHandler::GetValueFromVcp - Failed for the Command :20 in Normal format

Error :VcpCodeDataHandler::GetValueFromVcp - Failed for the Command :220 in Normal format

Error :VcpCodeDataHandler::GetValueFromVcp - Failed for the Command :229 in Normal format

I assumed that the HP Telemetry software made changes to the VCP data inside the monitor.

Searching the internet I found an application by Nirsoft named ControlMyMonitor and I installed the most recent version 1.38. The application lets you read (and wirte) from the monitor the VCP values. You'll find the software at the Nirsoft website www.nrisoft.net (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/control_my_monitor.html to be more precise!)

Since my monitor stays now in the SmartImage off mode I could save the config easily as Ascii. Then I switched the monitor manually to the 'racing mode' and saved that configuration also in Ascii. After some editing of the output files I found the differences for SmartImage off and SmartImage racing to be:

VPCCode 0C 'Color Temperature Request' 63 versus 35

VPCCode 14 'Select Color Preset' 8 versus 11

VPCCode 16 'Video Gain (Drive): Red' 100 versus 86

VPCCode 18 'Video Gain (Drive): Green' 100 versus 94

VPCCode 72 'Gamma' 160 versus 128

VPCCode 86 'Display Scaling' 160 versus 120

VPCCode DC 'Display Application' 0 versus 6

VPCCode EF 'Manufacturer Specific' 255 versus 1

VPCCode F0 'Manufacturer Specific' 1 versus 0

And then some testing. Changing VPCCode CC 'OSD Language' from 20 into 1 gave me English versus Dutch. Then going after VPCCode DC and changing it from 0 to 6. Yep into racing mode.

Maybe if someone at HP Inc reads this, it might give them some directions. I am not an expert in VPCcode. However I found that ControlMyMonitor gave some text in a file I save. However I guess that each character came as a 16bit quantity. Once I removed the non-printable and 0 characters I could use the Unix diff command. Quiet a journey so to speak.