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!

So, in the spirit of helping fellow sufferers cursed with the second screen resetting I wanted to update you on my experience. I have never been able to work on my laptop with an additional monitor - it loses connection and resets to such an extent that it really isn't workable. Sending the laptop back to the manufacturer made no difference. I had pretty much resigned to working off a laptop. I checked it today - it was still as bad. Acer ConceptD 7 laptop connected to Dell screen - random resetting after a few seconds of use, whether connected via HDMI or Displayport. So I decided to try adding another monitor to the mix - I don't need it but I wanted to see what would happen. One monitor is on HDMI and one is on display port. Curiously I have been happily working for a good 20 minutes with no reset. No idea why, but maybe some of you more techy people can make sense of that. Fingers crossed it keeps stable. Good luck

In case it is helpful to anyone, I found that when the display blinks off, any display which is being generated by the Smart TV(Acer) is still visible. For example, I was swapping the HDMI ports and had to turn the aspect ratio from 16:3 to "Auto" and was fiddling around with the TV remote for that. The strip at the bottom displaying the TV settings remained visible even though the PC display blinked off at that moment. Also. I have consistently observed that switching on or off anything in the home like electric lights causes the display to blink off and on. I strongly suspect that either a radio disturbance in the surroundings or slight electrical disturbance in the circuits causes this issue. It may also be triggered if a switch is operated in a nearby home if they are on the same electric phase supply. I would not be surprised if the HDMI format itself is susceptible this this power disturbance issue.... Khalid.

Thanks. But myo ptions are different and no longer work in NVIDIA control panel as Windows has taken over those functions.

Just to throw my experience in here. I have not read all of the replies, but this seems to have worked for me. In the NVidia Control Panel, under Manage 3D settings, Global Settings tab, I changed Power management mode from Adpative to NVIDIA driver-controlled and the issue went away.

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT..... Just blacked for a second while scrolling in Firefox :( Next, enabling hardware acceleration in Firefox.

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!

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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157 answers

Anonymous

2024-09-25T15:00:25+00:00

So, in the spirit of helping fellow sufferers cursed with the second screen resetting I wanted to update you on my experience. I have never been able to work on my laptop with an additional monitor - it loses connection and resets to such an extent that it really isn't workable. Sending the laptop back to the manufacturer made no difference. I had pretty much resigned to working off a laptop. I checked it today - it was still as bad. Acer ConceptD 7 laptop connected to Dell screen - random resetting after a few seconds of use, whether connected via HDMI or Displayport. So I decided to try adding another monitor to the mix - I don't need it but I wanted to see what would happen. One monitor is on HDMI and one is on display port. Curiously I have been happily working for a good 20 minutes with no reset. No idea why, but maybe some of you more techy people can make sense of that. Fingers crossed it keeps stable. Good luck
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Anonymous

2024-09-18T17:37:02+00:00

In case it is helpful to anyone, I found that when the display blinks off, any display which is being generated by the Smart TV(Acer) is still visible. For example, I was swapping the HDMI ports and had to turn the aspect ratio from 16:3 to "Auto" and was fiddling around with the TV remote for that. The strip at the bottom displaying the TV settings remained visible even though the PC display blinked off at that moment.

Also. I have consistently observed that switching on or off anything in the home like electric lights causes the display to blink off and on. I strongly suspect that either a radio disturbance in the surroundings or slight electrical disturbance in the circuits causes this issue. It may also be triggered if a switch is operated in a nearby home if they are on the same electric phase supply.

I would not be surprised if the HDMI format itself is susceptible this this power disturbance issue....

Khalid.
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Anonymous

2024-09-17T16:22:46+00:00

Thanks. But myo ptions are different and no longer work in NVIDIA control panel as Windows has taken over those functions.
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Anonymous

2024-09-17T16:00:55+00:00

Just to throw my experience in here. I have not read all of the replies, but this seems to have worked for me. In the NVidia Control Panel, under Manage 3D settings, Global Settings tab, I changed Power management mode from Adpative to NVIDIA driver-controlled and the issue went away.
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Anonymous

2024-09-12T23:02:49+00:00

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT.....

Just blacked for a second while scrolling in Firefox :(

Next, enabling hardware acceleration in Firefox.
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