09.09.2024
Home / Mobile OS / Windows 7 does not detect the monitor. What to do if the computer “does not see” the second monitor? How to force a video card to “come out of the shadows”

Windows 7 does not detect the monitor. What to do if the computer “does not see” the second monitor? How to force a video card to “come out of the shadows”

A monitor is present in almost every home and is an integral part of our lives. But there are situations when the computer does not see the monitor and you need to quickly solve this problem, but first you need to find out the reason for this situation. There can be a huge number of reasons, for example, problems with motherboard, video card, or flaw RAM or monitor cable break.

Now we will look in detail at the main causes of this problem and methods of solution.

Checking cables

First of all, pay attention to the cable; it can be VGA, HDMI or DVI, depending on the type of monitor. Inspect it for breaks or compression.

If you have a spare cable at home, try connecting it. And then it will immediately become clear whether the problem is with the cable or not.

Sometimes it happens that you have a dedicated video card, and the monitor cable is connected to the motherboard connector. Therefore, you need to check the correct connection and connect it to the video card itself.

Another point is that the power cable may be faulty or loose. To do this, you need to see if the indicator light on the monitor is on. If the indicator does not light, try pressing the monitor's on/off button.

Processor failure

One of the possible malfunctions may be processor failure. When this happens, there is no image on the monitor, but motherboard When you turn on the computer, it should emit several beeps, which indicate problems with the processor.

Video card malfunction

You can check the serviceability of a video card quite simply; to do this, you need to connect it to a known-good system unit with a working motherboard.

In addition, when the video card fails, when turned on, the computer will emit several sound signals, since self-diagnosis of all components occurs at startup.

If your computer is several years old, then you can clean the contacts of the video card with an eraser, while disconnecting it from the PC.

RAM is faulty

Another reason could be RAM. To check its functionality, simply remove the memory module and insert it into the adjacent slot. The ideal option would be to install a known-good module.

Screen resolution

Such problems can also occur due to resolution mismatches, for example, the monitor does not support the required resolution due to its obsolescence or other problems. IN in this case There may be a black screen or intermittent shutdowns.

To get the best experience and improve productivity, users use a combination of two or even more monitors. This doesn't mean you need to buy another computer or laptop to use two monitors.

If your video card supports multiple connection ports, then you can easily connect multiple monitors to it. Based on this, the number of monitors you can connect to your PC depends on the number of ports on your graphics card.

You can find various ports on a graphics card, such as VGA, DVI, HDMI, and Displayport. These days, HDMI and Displayport are the most popular connection interfaces. VGA and DVI-I (not DVI-D), in turn, are practically no longer used (connecting a modern video card to a VGA monitor is still incredibly problematic).

Most widespread The connection interface is HDMI, which provides users with access to the highest at the moment permissions. Plus, HDMI can also carry the signal from the sound card.

In addition to different connection interfaces for transmitting video signals from the video card to the monitor, there are two different types video cards: integrated and discrete (PCIe). What is the difference between these two types of video cards?

The integrated video card is built into the motherboard, and the PCIe video card is connected to the PCIe slot of the PC motherboard. If you play video games, do graphic design or video editing, then we recommend that you use a discrete graphics card, as it is designed for such tasks and is much more powerful.

Sometimes, you will need to connect a second monitor to your machine. This procedure is quite simple: we take a cable with the desired connection interface, for example, HDMI, connect one end to the connector on the video card, and the other to the connector on the monitor. That's it.

However, sometimes things don't go so smoothly, and your computer, for some reason, cannot detect the second monitor. What is the reason behind this trouble? So, there are many reasons: cable problems, incompatible drivers, configuration problems with the user’s computer, etc.

In this article, we will look at 10 various methods, which we hope can help you with the problem of detecting a connected monitor.

If you have correctly connected the monitor to your video card, but nothing is displayed on it, then you can try changing the projection mode. The problem could simply be because your graphics card didn't know what to do with the second monitor you connected. Now we will show you how to change the projection mode on Windows 10. Although, the same can be done on operating systems such as Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

  • Press the key combination on your keyboard Windows+P.
  • Then you will see a menu for selecting a projection mode, which will contain four settings. Select the setting according to your preferences and click on it.

Well, has the second monitor finally come to life? If not, then that was not the issue and we move on.

In the Windows operating system (as, indeed, in any other OS), various bugs and errors sometimes arise that prevent it from working correctly, and, as a result, prevent the user from using the functionality of the OS.

Try restarting your machine to fix the possible problem. There is a possibility that the problem is on the side of your OS, which stubbornly does not want to detect the connection of another monitor in available devices. After rebooting, try the method described above again.

Method #3 Disconnecting the computer, monitors and cables

Ok, in the previous method we tried to simply restart the computer to get rid of a possible “jamb” of Windows 10/8.1/8. However, the problem may not be at the level software, but at the hardware level.

Try turning off your computer completely, disconnect all monitors from it, disconnect all cables from them. Also remember to unplug your two monitors. Wait a couple of minutes, and then reconnect all equipment.

Perhaps there was some kind of conflict in the connected hardware of your computer and the second monitor refused to be detected by the system. This method helps some users on the network (at least some of them claim so). Plus, there is simply no risk when performing, say, this trick. So why not try it.

Method No. 4 Reconnecting the video adapter (video card)

Some users claim that simply reconnecting the video card via system utility"Device Manager".

This is done very simply and now we will show you how to do it:

  • Right-click on Start and select Device Manager.
  • You will see a list of equipment that is installed and running on your system. Find the "Video Adapters" section.
  • Find the name of your video card in the list and right-click on it.
  • Select Disconnect Device.
  • Then right-click on the driver for your video card again and select “Enable device.”
  • Test your second monitor again.

Perhaps your second monitor was diligently not being detected due to the fact that the driver for your video card began to malfunction for some reason. This simple procedure of reactivating the device can often correct the situation.

Method #5 Reinstalling monitors

Ok, if re-enabling your video adapter did not help fix the situation, then let's try to reinstall the monitors themselves that are currently connected to your system. Go to the system utility Task Manager again and follow these steps:

  • When you are in front of the list of installed equipment, find the “Monitors” section.
  • Open this section and find your monitor in the list. Right-click on it and select “Remove device.”
  • After your monitor goes dark, restart your computer and connect a second monitor to it, if it was not already connected to the system unit, and then the main monitor.
  • Then check if your second monitor is displayed in conjunction with the main one.

Method No. 6 Roll back the driver for the video card to the previous version

Perhaps the problem with detecting the second monitor lies in the driver for the video card that is currently installed on your system. To resolve this issue, you can try rolling back the video driver to previous version. This is done, again, through the Device Manager.

  • Go to Device Manager, go to the Video Adapters section and find your video card.
  • Right-click on it and select Properties.
  • Go to the "Driver" tab.
  • Click on the "Roll Back" button.

Once the driver for your computer has rolled back, try connecting two monitors to it again. If this time everything went well and you did accomplish your plan, then the problem was definitely the driver for the video card.

Method #7 Changing the refresh rate

In this method, we will now try to change the refresh rate on your monitor, since it may be the cause of problems when connecting a second monitor. For example, you could set the refresh rate on your main monitor to 75 Hertz, while on it and on the secondary monitor, the maximum refresh rate is 59-60 Hertz.

  • Click on your keyboard Windows+I to go to system settings.
  • Go to the "System" section.
  • Then select the "Display" tab.
  • Scroll down to the very bottom of the screen settings window and click on the “Graphics adapter properties” link.
  • Go to the “Monitor” tab.
  • Click on the drop-down menu and select the correct refresh rate for your monitor, for example 60 Hz.
  • Apply the changes.

After changing the refresh rate, try connecting a second monitor and see if anything changes. You can also try setting something in the projection settings that we mentioned in the very first point.

Method #8 Tricks for laptop owners

If you are trying to connect a second monitor to a laptop, then we can recommend you to perform a couple of tricks that may help when connecting a second monitor:

  • Try closing your laptop while the monitor is connected (this will make the laptop display temporarily disabled). The second monitor should now be marked as the main monitor. As soon as you open the laptop, both displays should start working at once.
  • Try putting your computer into sleep mode while a second monitor is connected to your computer, and then waking it up.

Method #9 Activating Multiple Displays

If you are an Nvidia graphics card user, then you can try enabling the multiple display option in the Nvidia Control Panel.

  • Right-click on the Desktop and select Nvidia Control Panel.

For a significant number of people, life is simply impossible without a computer. Therefore, it is very unpleasant when there are problems with your favorite device. For example, some users experience that the computer does not see the monitor. This can happen both with a standard device and when connecting an additional device.

There are a great many reasons for this problem. Sometimes users simply forget to connect the monitor. However, most often the problem turns out to be more global. As a rule, when the computer does not see the monitor and there is no signal, the reason may lie in the hardware of the device. For example, this is a damaged cable, insufficient RAM, a video card error or even the motherboard itself. A little less frequently, problems are related to the operation of the system itself. Let's try to figure out why the computer does not see the monitor and how to solve this problem.

Power check

First of all, it’s worth starting with the simplest. No matter how absurd it may seem, sometimes everything is too obvious and it doesn’t occur to anyone. Therefore, if the computer does not see the monitor, then you need to check whether the cable has come loose and whether the device’s power button is pressed. This should be indicated by a special light indicator.

If the monitor is working properly (at least it is properly connected) and there is no image on it, then you should try pressing the menu button, which opens the screen settings control panel.

Checking the computer's operation

If the breakdown is related to incorrect operation of the PC, then this is quite easy to check. If the computer does not see the monitor via a VGA cable, then just try connecting the screen to another device. Today, almost all modern TVs are equipped with the same connector. However, if it is impossible to check the operation of the monitor in this way, then it is worth paying attention to some nuances.

If the computer is malfunctioning, it may begin to flash. If any problems occur, the power button or any other indicator on the PC begins to flash red. In addition, the computer may produce characteristic sound signals. All these signs indicate that the problem is not with the monitor, but with the PC itself.

If the computer does not see the monitor and at the same time “beeps”, then this indicates possible problems with a video card or motherboard. In this case, you should contact a service center or try to find out on your own where the failures are occurring.

Sometimes the monitor is connected normally, and the PC turns on normally without any problems, but there is no image on the screen. The device may simply be in sleep mode. In this case, you can try pressing any buttons on the keyboard or moving the mouse. If the computer does not see the monitor, then do not despair, there are still many options for fixing the problem.

Checking cables

If the wires are damaged, this may also affect the operation of the device. In this case, it does not matter at all whether the computer does not see the monitor via HDMI, DVI or VGA. Any of these wires can come loose at the most unexpected moment. Most often this happens when the cable is not screwed into the back of the screen and PC, but is simply inserted.

If you are using a dedicated video card, you need to make sure that the screen is connected to it and not to the regular motherboard connector. As a rule, the system automatically turns off the standard graphics and uses the connected device. If this does not happen, then you need to disable the image feed through the “mother” manually.

Problems with the motherboard

Many people use two monitors on their PCs. If the computer does not see the second monitor, then the problem may be that one of them is powered by the motherboard, and the second by the video card.

In this case, using a different type of cable or setting up an additional screen using a different method will help. Most likely, the picture will be worse in this case.

Permission

Quite often, such problems occur when the picture quality does not match the capabilities of the monitor. In this case, the screen will not work or will begin to turn off with enviable frequency. To resolve this problem, just reboot the system and start it in safe mode. After that, just change the resolution to a lower one.

However, everything is not so simple. The fact is that modern operating systems return the original resolution after 15 seconds. Therefore, you need to click the “Save” button in time. In addition, the system may begin to persistently switch resolution when it detects more suitable parameters, in its opinion.

Another situation may also occur. For example, when the monitor does not show “signs of life” when the computer is running. In this case, perhaps the user simply connected two monitors and then disconnected one of them, but operating system for some reason I did not receive this signal. In this case, it is recommended to hold down the Fn button on the keyboard (usually it is located to the left of the space bar) and press F1, F12 or another key (depending on the laptop model).

Go to BIOS

Sometimes users encounter literally mystical behavior of devices. For example, when when you turn on the PC, information appears on the monitor about the start of the system boot, but after that the image disappears and nothing else happens. In this case, the problem may be deeper, perhaps it's all about Windows. What to do if the computer does not see the monitor in this case?

To do this, you need to boot the system in safe mode and restore the OS using the built-in system recovery function. You can also perform a manual factory reset. However, to do this you need to have sufficient knowledge and skills.

Checking the equipment

To fix the problem, you can try disconnecting the keyboard, mouse, external hard drives, printer, scanner, speakers and all other devices from the computer. Sometimes, due to problems with third-party equipment, problems can occur in the most unexpected components.

After this, you only need to turn on the monitor and computer and wait for it to load. If this does not help, then you need to inspect all the connectors on the devices. Very often, users pull out cables too quickly, causing the ports to stop functioning normally.

If they are damaged, you can try to solve the problem yourself or take the devices to a service center. As a rule, the ports in the connectors are bent, this can be seen with the naked eye. Therefore, you can try to level them with your own hands.

CPU

Sometimes all components of the system work properly, and there are no problems with the monitor itself. This situation confuses any user. It's not surprising if the PC makes a distinctive sound and the monitor works great with other devices. In this case, the problem may be with the processor. If it fails, the computer will make a characteristic sound, but in fact the system will not boot. This is because the coolers are spinning, but nothing else is happening. At the same time, even the motherboard can produce a number of characteristic sounds. However, nothing can work with a burned out processor.

Video card

This board may also fail, thereby causing the problem described in the article. In this case, the PC will also make characteristic sounds, but it will be impossible to display an image.

To check your video card, you just need to connect it to any working system unit and try to start it. If the computer does not work with another monitor, then it’s all about this board.

Some problems can be identified using computer self-diagnosis tools. To do this, you also need to insert the video card into system unit and run BIOS testing. If during the test the PC begins to make uncharacteristic and very sharp sounds, then the problem is with the board.

However, before you test the video card on another device, you need to check whether it is suitable for it. To do this, it is necessary to clarify not only system requirements, but also whether the connectors on the board correspond to the ports on the “mother”. To do this, you should consult with specialists or ask for advice on a specialized forum.

If all else fails, then all that remains is to contact the service center and carry out a full diagnosis. It won't be cheap.

It is also not recommended to try to repair the computer yourself if the user does not have the appropriate skills and knowledge. In this case, you can cause even more damage to the car. Repairs will cost even more in the long run.

If the computer turns on, you hear sound signals and see light signals on the case, but the image is not displayed, then the problem may lie in a faulty video card or incorrectly connected components. In this article, we will look at several ways to solve the problem when the graphics adapter does not transfer images to the monitor.

There are a number of reasons for this problem, each of them has solutions that vary in complexity, so we will move from the simplest to the most complex so as not to perform unnecessary actions if a minor problem is detected. Let's start analyzing all the methods.

Method 1: Checking the Monitor

Sometimes the problem is with the monitor itself. Check if the power is connected, turned on and the cable is connected to the video card. Try replacing the cable if possible. In addition, you should carefully check that the HDMI, VGA, DVI or Display Port cable is connected correctly.

Method 2: Checking PC functionality

In rare cases, the computer does not completely go through the power-on cycle, but freezes at a certain point, which may make it seem like the problem is with the video card. For example, the most common problem is a crash when resuming from sleep or standby mode. To check this, you need to hold down the power button for a few seconds until the computer turns off completely, and then turn it on again. If the problem persists, then move on to the next method.

Method 3: Determining the cause of the failure using the BIOS signal code

Each manufacturer uses a different combination of short and long signals, so we highly recommend reading our article on this topic to be familiar with all the signals of your BIOS manufacturer. Based on the results obtained, try to solve the problem yourself or take the computer to a service center.

Method 4: Reinstalling components

When assembling the computer, some parts may not fully fit into their connectors or the connection may have been made incorrectly. Remove the side panel of the case and carefully examine everything inside. Check the wire connections with the instructions that came with your computer or motherboard. Pay special attention to the video card, whether it is well installed and connected extra food, if any. In addition, pay attention to the processor, whether it is installed correctly and securely.

If you connect a second monitor or TV to your laptop or computer via HDMI, Display Port, VGA or DVI, everything usually works right away without the need for any additional settings(except for selecting a display mode on two monitors). However, sometimes it happens that Windows does not see the second monitor and it is not always clear why this happens and how to fix the situation.

This manual explains in detail why the system may not see a second connected monitor, TV or other screen and about possible ways fix the problem. Further, it is assumed that both monitors are guaranteed to work.

Unfortunately, a very common situation among novice users is when they try to update the driver in Device Manager and receive a message that the most suitable driver already installed and subsequent confidence that the driver is indeed updated.

In fact, such a message only says that Windows does not have other drivers and you may well be told that the driver is installed when “Standard VGA Graphics Adapter” or “Microsoft Basic Video Adapter” is displayed in Device Manager (both of these options indicate that that the driver was not found and a standard driver was installed, which can only perform basic functions and usually does not work with multiple monitors).

Therefore, if you encounter problems connecting a second monitor, I strongly recommend installing the video card driver manually:

  1. Download the driver for your video card from the official website of NVIDIA (for GeForce), AMD (for Radeon) or Intel (for HD Graphics). For a laptop, you can try downloading the driver from the official website of the laptop manufacturer (sometimes they work “more correctly” despite the fact that they are often older).
  2. Install this driver. If the installation fails or the driver does not change, try first.
  3. Check if the problem has been resolved.

Another option is possible, related to drivers: the second monitor was working, but suddenly it was no longer detected. This may indicate that Windows has updated the video card driver. Try going to the device manager, opening the properties of your video card and on the “Driver” tab, roll back the driver.

Additional information that may help when the second monitor is not detected

In conclusion, some additional nuances that may help figure out why the second monitor is not visible in Windows:


If your situation differs from all the proposed options, and your computer or laptop still does not see the monitor, describe in the comments how exactly, what video card the displays are connected to and other details of the problem - perhaps I can help.