I am working off of a laptop and have a second monitor to extend my displays. I have been using this set up for two years now and have not had a problem until last night. It seems that my attached monitor only (main monitor on laptop is not affected) will go black for a few seconds before turning back on and showing my screen. It should be noted that my laptop does not reset the display to place the windows back onto the main screen when this happens but the extended monitor goes black at random. Note that I am running Windows 10 and unable to upgrade to Windows 11 as of now. So far, I have tried the following solutions but still cannot figure this out. Bought brand new chords (HDMI + Adapter) Bought a brand new second monitor (issues happening with both old and new monitor) Checked for updates on all drivers Reinstalled both graphics drivers Rolled back graphics drivers Checked basic settings (sleep/power/screen saver settings) Disabled all services in background apps in "System Configuration" Restarted Windows explorer This means I have spent time replacing and even buying new equipment to get around this issue but cannot seem to figure it out! This is very important since I work at home as well. Please let me know if there is anything else I can possibly do outside of hard resetting the computer (which I cannot do for a few reasons). Thank you!

I do not want to jinx this, but been maybe 36 hours or more no blacking of the screen. I truly thought twice on posting this :) I went to displayport rather than HDMI. That alone seems to have fixed the loss of signal when checking for HDCP on videos with DRM, like switching to Hulu Live. Then I disabled the monitor speakers (there are none!!) in settings/sound. You "could" add a soundbar to this monitor, so Windows seems to think that constitutes speakers and adds it as a sound device Disable it if not being used and not your primary sound source. Then I made ALL apps that use graphics select "let windows decide" where I had the apps wiith the blacking issues set to "low power" to force the Integrated Graphics. This was Firefox, Edge, and Lightroom. Photoshop never had the issue. That's it. Cross fingers with me, would ya?

Today was displayport day. I might be imagining, but seems the picture quality is just slightly better than HDMI. BUT, still occasionally goes black for that one or two seconds. Always returns. Has not "lost signal" in several months as it once did the third or fourth time the monitor went blank. It would then report "no hdmi signal found" or similar. Would require reboot. Sometimes just switching inputs on the monitor for a minute then back. So, not DP vs HDMI. Not cable.. Likely not monitor on 2 different inputs. Leaves driver or dock. I am on the latest Intel driver as the later Lenovo drivers have issues (memory leak in DWM. Exe). I rarely use the NVIDIA GPU and have things set to let windows decide AND the intense apps like Lightroom and even browser set to power saving mode. I guess its possible the blanking is Optimus trying to switch drivers. Maybe next set of experiments.

I tried it disabling the Bluetooth driver and it didn't work for me either. I still get my second display refreshing randomly every few minutes when I move the mouse. I started looking into the event log to see if I could find anything to help. There's a warning logged that says that the "display driver NVLDDMKM has stopped responding and has successfully recovered" but there is no error logged that I can find. That would explain the resetting of the displays but not why its happening. It is so frustrating.

I haven't found a definitive solution. But there is something that may help to live with it. When the issue starts happening, press Win+Ctrl+Shift+B to force the GPU driver to reset. It may crash some of your open apps so save your work before doing this. It will stop the issue for a while, until it happens again... But to me it will hardly happen again in the same day if I don't restart the system.

I saw another thread where someone running Linux had also experienced this problem. If so (and I can't be sure), that would suggest that the problem is with hardware, rather than Windows (or other software). As far as hardware goes, I have replaced both monitors and both cables. So that leaves the graphics adapter, motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply, etc. My hardware is: Aorus B450 AORUS ELITE (Socket AM4/B450/DDR4/S-ATA 600/ATX) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor with Wraith Prism RGB LED Cooler - YD270XBGAFBOX ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB Twin Fan Graphics Card 1 x 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz Memory. Perhaps others with this problem can share their hardware details, so that we can look for common factors? Before I replaced the monitors (I upgraded from 24" HD to 27" QHD) the 2nd display would only go blank when I turned my desk fan on or off. It was plugged into the same gang socket as that monitor. So I assumed that it was a mains power supply problem. However, I then plugged the monitor into a completely different outlet, and the problem persisted. The problem is now worse - my desk fan is now completely unplugged, and the 2nd display is still going blank. I hoped that when I replaced both monitors the problem might go away. It didn't. I then tried upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11. That didn't help either. I removed and re-inserted the display adapter. That didn't help. ????

Second monitor keeps on temporarily going black at random

Anonymous

I am working off of a laptop and have a second monitor to extend my displays. I have been using this set up for two years now and have not had a problem until last night. It seems that my attached monitor only (main monitor on laptop is not affected) will go black for a few seconds before turning back on and showing my screen. It should be noted that my laptop does not reset the display to place the windows back onto the main screen when this happens but the extended monitor goes black at random. Note that I am running Windows 10 and unable to upgrade to Windows 11 as of now.

So far, I have tried the following solutions but still cannot figure this out.

Bought brand new chords (HDMI + Adapter)
Bought a brand new second monitor (issues happening with both old and new monitor)
Checked for updates on all drivers
Reinstalled both graphics drivers
Rolled back graphics drivers
Checked basic settings (sleep/power/screen saver settings)
Disabled all services in background apps in "System Configuration"
Restarted Windows explorer

This means I have spent time replacing and even buying new equipment to get around this issue but cannot seem to figure it out! This is very important since I work at home as well. Please let me know if there is anything else I can possibly do outside of hard resetting the computer (which I cannot do for a few reasons). Thank you!

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Anonymous

2024-09-12T22:39:11+00:00

I do not want to jinx this, but been maybe 36 hours or more no blacking of the screen. I truly thought twice on posting this :)

I went to displayport rather than HDMI. That alone seems to have fixed the loss of signal when checking for HDCP on videos with DRM, like switching to Hulu Live.

Then I disabled the monitor speakers (there are none!!) in settings/sound. You "could" add a soundbar to this monitor, so Windows seems to think that constitutes speakers and adds it as a sound device Disable it if not being used and not your primary sound source.

Then I made ALL apps that use graphics select "let windows decide" where I had the apps wiith the blacking issues set to "low power" to force the Integrated Graphics. This was Firefox, Edge, and Lightroom. Photoshop never had the issue.

That's it.

Cross fingers with me, would ya?
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Anonymous

2024-09-11T19:33:07+00:00

Today was displayport day. I might be imagining, but seems the picture quality is just slightly better than HDMI. BUT, still occasionally goes black for that one or two seconds. Always returns. Has not "lost signal" in several months as it once did the third or fourth time the monitor went blank. It would then report "no hdmi signal found" or similar. Would require reboot. Sometimes just switching inputs on the monitor for a minute then back.

So, not DP vs HDMI. Not cable.. Likely not monitor on 2 different inputs. Leaves driver or dock. I am on the latest Intel driver as the later Lenovo drivers have issues (memory leak in DWM. Exe).

I rarely use the NVIDIA GPU and have things set to let windows decide AND the intense apps like Lightroom and even browser set to power saving mode. I guess its possible the blanking is Optimus trying to switch drivers. Maybe next set of experiments.
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Anonymous

2024-04-08T12:21:53+00:00

I tried it disabling the Bluetooth driver and it didn't work for me either. I still get my second display refreshing randomly every few minutes when I move the mouse. I started looking into the event log to see if I could find anything to help. There's a warning logged that says that the "display driver NVLDDMKM has stopped responding and has successfully recovered" but there is no error logged that I can find. That would explain the resetting of the displays but not why its happening. It is so frustrating.
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Anonymous

2024-03-21T12:29:09+00:00

I haven't found a definitive solution. But there is something that may help to live with it.

When the issue starts happening, press Win+Ctrl+Shift+B to force the GPU driver to reset. It may crash some of your open apps so save your work before doing this.

It will stop the issue for a while, until it happens again... But to me it will hardly happen again in the same day if I don't restart the system.
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Anonymous

2024-01-26T11:29:54+00:00
I saw another thread where someone running Linux had also experienced this problem. If so (and I can't be sure), that would suggest that the problem is with hardware, rather than Windows (or other software).

As far as hardware goes, I have replaced both monitors and both cables. So that leaves the graphics adapter, motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply, etc. My hardware is:
- Aorus B450 AORUS ELITE (Socket AM4/B450/DDR4/S-ATA 600/ATX)
- AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor with Wraith Prism RGB LED Cooler - YD270XBGAFBOX
- ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB Twin Fan Graphics Card
- 1 x 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz Memory.
Perhaps others with this problem can share their hardware details, so that we can look for common factors?

Before I replaced the monitors (I upgraded from 24" HD to 27" QHD) the 2nd display would only go blank when I turned my desk fan on or off. It was plugged into the same gang socket as that monitor. So I assumed that it was a mains power supply problem. However, I then plugged the monitor into a completely different outlet, and the problem persisted. The problem is now worse - my desk fan is now completely unplugged, and the 2nd display is still going blank.

I hoped that when I replaced both monitors the problem might go away. It didn't. I then tried upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11. That didn't help either. I removed and re-inserted the display adapter. That didn't help.

????
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