Second Monitor Detected by PC but Not by Windows

AdvocateOfNyx · July 20, 2021

This is a weird issue. Inside of Windows, my second monitor is completely black and undetected. Based on the light on the monitor, it is in "sleep mode," waiting for a signal. However, when I turn my PC on, the motherboard/BIOS flash screen that tell me which buttons to press to open which menus is on that monitor, meaning it is definitely connected. However as soon as I get in to Windows, it becomes black.

First I checked my display settings to see if my multiple monitor settings was set to monitor 1 only, but no second monitor even appears there. Then I went to device manager to see if it was disabled, but it does not appear in device manger either. I restarted my computer and tried plugging it in to a different port on my GPU but that did not seem to change anything.

The monitor is an HP w2207.

Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? Thanks!

Edit: Solution found

Okay, so I figured out what the problem was here and I am just writing it here for anyone that may run in to the same issue. I had turned off one monitor in Windows settings (turned it to show only on one) before leaving for a trip and remoted in to my computer via Parsec. I was having issues with 1080p so I turned the res down to 720p, which apparently also turned BOTH of my monitors to 720p mode, which it turns out my 16:10 monitor does not support very well. This ended up being fixed by changing the Windows settings from show only on one back to extend, then selecting monitor 2 and changing the resolution back to native. I am not sure how I was eventually able to change my monitor settings back to extend even without the other monitor being detected because I ran in to a similar issue just a week or so later and never was able to figure that one out, but hey, that's what worked for me even if I'm not entirely sure how.