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!

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

Thanks for sharing your experiences. My experience is different from yours. When the monitor freezes, not necessarily black, sometimes a different colour, it causes the laptop screen to freeze as well, and then reset, connected through HDMI or Displayport. I wondered about audio being a trigger, my monitor doesn't have audio either, but switching audio off hasn't made a difference. The frozen screen (lost communication) seems to happen with just a move of the mouse/touch pad. In particular, when I go to save a file, in, for example, inkscape, the screen will freeze as soon as I move the cursor into the window filename box on the 'save as' window. That is very specific and repeatable but it also happens at other times randomly. I am not able to use my monitor with my laptop and it is very frustrating.

I do believe this is happening less, but stil happening. Seems only browser and Lightroom if I have not said that previously. Likely I do not use any other programs as intensely though. So who knows what the trigger really is. Unsure if using Win+CTRL+SHIFT+B extends the amoung of usable time before I have to reboot or not. Today, if I find time, is to experiment around with TdrDelay times in the rigistry. One thing I have not been able to determine is if that setting affects both the Laptop Screen and External Monitor as the Laptop Screen never has this issue. Just the external. If it affects both then likely not the solution. Yet... This one driving me nuts!

Disabled both Control Panel speakers AND Device Manager Intel Audio. Damn, showed so much promise but just went black screen. Running out of ideas!

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

2024-09-17T16:22:46+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

2024-09-03T13:25:57+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experiences. My experience is different from yours. When the monitor freezes, not necessarily black, sometimes a different colour, it causes the laptop screen to freeze as well, and then reset, connected through HDMI or Displayport. I wondered about audio being a trigger, my monitor doesn't have audio either, but switching audio off hasn't made a difference. The frozen screen (lost communication) seems to happen with just a move of the mouse/touch pad. In particular, when I go to save a file, in, for example, inkscape, the screen will freeze as soon as I move the cursor into the window filename box on the 'save as' window. That is very specific and repeatable but it also happens at other times randomly. I am not able to use my monitor with my laptop and it is very frustrating.
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Anonymous

2024-09-03T09:08:19+00:00

I do believe this is happening less, but stil happening. Seems only browser and Lightroom if I have not said that previously. Likely I do not use any other programs as intensely though. So who knows what the trigger really is.

Unsure if using Win+CTRL+SHIFT+B extends the amoung of usable time before I have to reboot or not.

Today, if I find time, is to experiment around with TdrDelay times in the rigistry. One thing I have not been able to determine is if that setting affects both the Laptop Screen and External Monitor as the Laptop Screen never has this issue. Just the external. If it affects both then likely not the solution. Yet...

This one driving me nuts!
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Anonymous

2024-09-01T17:18:23+00:00

Disabled both Control Panel speakers AND Device Manager Intel Audio. Damn, showed so much promise but just went black screen.

Running out of ideas!
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