Second monitor keeps on temporarily going black at random

Hello, I was just helping a friend of mine who just bought a new monitor and found turning off G-Sync for both monitors to be the solution.

Friend buys a 2nd monitor that was Free-sync (AMD) compatible with a Nvidia Ge-force Graphics card. The first monitor that was being used was G-Sync compatible, 2nd was not. The system kept trying to push G-Sync through both monitors causing the G-Sync monitor to black out as it was acting as if it were reverted back to an old setting. The 2nd Free-sync AMD monitor worked fine. Even though I had read somewhere that Free-sync worked with Nvidia settings I have a feeling not all firmware was updated or created this way.

The work around was to disable G-Sync through Nvidia control panel, (Go to Nvidia Control Panel>> Set up G-Sync>>Uncheck G-sync>> Hit Apply).

Then on the AMD monitor, physically pressing the menu buttons to Freesync and enabling Freesync basic or extended mode. All of which worked and they no longer had the randomly blacked out screen.

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.

1. Bought brand new chords (HDMI + Adapter)
2. Bought a brand new second monitor (issues happening with both old and new monitor)
3. Checked for updates on all drivers
4. Reinstalled both graphics drivers
5. Rolled back graphics drivers
6. Checked basic settings (sleep/power/screen saver settings)
7. Disabled all services in background apps in "System Configuration"
8. 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!

Hello, I was just helping a friend of mine who just bought a new monitor and found turning off G-Sync for both monitors to be the solution.

Friend buys a 2nd monitor that was Free-sync (AMD) compatible with a Nvidia Ge-force Graphics card. The first monitor that was being used was G-Sync compatible, 2nd was not. The system kept trying to push G-Sync through both monitors causing the G-Sync monitor to black out as it was acting as if it were reverted back to an old setting. The 2nd Free-sync AMD monitor worked fine. Even though I had read somewhere that Free-sync worked with Nvidia settings I have a feeling not all firmware was updated or created this way.

This stopped the black outs,

The work around was to disable G-Sync through Nvidia control panel, (Go to Nvidia Control Panel>> Set up G-Sync>>Uncheck G-sync>> Hit Apply).

To enable freesync ,

Then on the AMD monitor, physically pressing the menu buttons to Freesync and enabling Freesync basic or extended mode. All of which worked and they no longer had the randomly blacked out screen.

Hi!

I have almost same problem: my laptop display goes black when my external display is connected as from yesterday. Tried updating, restarting, etc.

I have a Asus Vivobook only 2 months old and the Win 11 that came with it.

Thanks for the extensive answers, but both my monitors only have a 60 hz range, non changeable, so not the solution for me.

Please, Microsoft, since you charge for this, be kind and solve it!

I also looked for multi-display managing software, thinking it might override Microsoft's problem when in charge. I tried Fusion Display (which I used before Microsoft allowed dual monitor) but didn't work since my display went black anyways...

Does any of you know of some other software that might help us?