Dual monitor - Second monitor sleep / does not recognize input.

[Daniel Mertes]

Hi,

Hardware: I have 5, brand new HP Compaq 8000 Elite Ultra-Slim Desktops, all of which are connected to Dual HP LE2201w monitors using an HP Display port adapter.

Issue 1: Second monitor stays blank on bootup and will not wake up. Half the time unplugging the adapter from the computer will work. Most of the time this requires a reboot

Issue 2: Second monitor suddenly says "No Input Signal and goes to sleep. Resolved same way as issue 1.

Issue 3: Second monitor says "Input signal out of range, please adjust resolution to...." but still shows the second desktop, only now it's fuzzy. Resolution is already set appropriately though. Rebooting seems to be the only fix.

I have found this problem everywhere on the internet with none of the solutions working for me. I have 4 other users in my department. All have the same issues.

What I have done:

1.Tested the display adapters on a Lenovo laptop. I do not have issues this way, so I don't believe it's the adapters.

2. Installed newest Intel graphics driver (sp46811) and updated BIOS (sp48219). No change.

3. Deactivated all power settings in control panel, BIOS, and on the physical monitor. Still sleeps.

4. Spoke to HP Tech Support. They believe it is the adapters. Anyone else have similar issues?

[Jason Delaria]

Daniel, I have this exact same issue. Although, I have 5 machines and 2 of them the monitors do not come back after a reboot and on the third, the display settings don't stay. The other 2 work fine. I have found the only fix being to pull the adaptor from the back of the PC and plugging it back in.

[Jason Delaria]

I thought I would drop a note to inform that I believe I found the solution to my issue. I found that the two machines that were having this exact issue had a bad VGA adaptor (dongle). I replaced these out with new ones and the issue was resolved. I am not sure of this, but it could have been because these two adaptors cables were kinked tightly between the back of the computer and the wall. I made sure not to kink the new ones.

I hope this helps you with your issue.

[JohnLMC]

I have this problem on nearly every single 8000 I currently have deployed (8).  Has anyone found anything other than the dongle to check?

[Jason Delaria]

I have seen the dual monitor issue come and go in my now 8 machines. One day the users will turn on their PC's and the second monitor will not come up. The next, they are fine. 

Anyone, please post if you have found a solution.

[lloydbare]

I have seen the same thing.  I will be contacting HP for a fix.

[jsenten]

yes, we are seeing the same thing.  see: http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Monitors/LP2275w-DisplayPort/m-p/2306983  under "display port on elite 8000"  we ended up pulling the adapters off and installing dual output video cards by ATI to resolve the issue.  no luck yet. j

[VidyaVI]

Hi All,

Thanks for your participation in Forums.

You may try Updating the Beta BIOS .

Thanks.

[markbop]

The Beta Video BIOS for the 8000 Elite worked.  Dual monitor works as it should and does not stop the system from booting.

Is there an ETA for a VBIOS that is not a beta?  When the system boots, there is a message in red, "For HP Internal Use Only" and the normal blue HP BIOS screen does not appear.

Thanks.

[markbop]

Any word on when a non-beta BIOS will be available for the 8000 Elite Small Form Factor?

As stated at the end of November 2010, the beta VBIOS fixed the dual video problem.

We are on hold with the deployment of many systems that will require dual monitor capability.  Using anything other than an "official" BIOS update is not an option for us.

Thank you.

[Carl Anthony]

Hello all,

I am the 3LS engineer that has been assigned to work the sleep recovery issue.  Here is the current status of the issue as I know it:

1)  The beta VBIOS (embedded in the beta system BIOS) does NOT fix this issue.  this has been confirmed in our labs.  Please disregard any postings regarding a beta BIOS release.

2)  Our dongle manufacturer and the logic chip sub-supplier, in collaboration with our partner Intel, have potentially identified the problem, and we are currently testing a solution that is a fix to the dongle, not the system BIOS.  ETA is not readily available, but it should be very soon.  initial results of testing is positive.

I must warn all on this forum that deploying a beta version system BIOS to end users is a big no-no.  We can only give them tested and approved BIOS's, such as a service release (like the softpaqs) or bootleg BIOS's.  These beta BIOS's are for HP internal testing only.  

I will lurk on this forum for a while for any questions, or you can contact your HP service provider.  I have been in contact with service personnel while working on this issue, and they should have all the latest information.  I apologize for the duration of delivery of this fix, but it is an extremely difficult issue to work, which has been exacerbated by the fact that the issue is very intermittent to reproduce.

Thanks,

Carl

[markbop]

Although some follow-up posts to the OP speak of a "dongle", the OP only mentioned using the Display Port as a secondary monitor.  We encountered the same issues he described.

Recap: 

One monitor connected to VGA, 2nd "dual" monitor connected to the Display Port.  The monitor connected to the DP would only work until the system was shutdown or restarted.  The power light would come on, but the system would "hang" and not boot (no error beeps, just hang).  At this point, if you pulled the DP cable out, the system would continue to boot normally.

The "beta" vbios fixed the issue for us.  Our issue does not involve a "dongle".

For warranty reasons, we have only deployed this fix on one test machine and do not advise anyone to use a beta bios as it "may" void your warranty. 

CarlA: Please contact me if you need any further information.

[jason_485]

CarlA Do you have a case number or kb I can reference this to when calling support?

What is the status of your research?

I have seen this article and am still troubleshooting. Not sure if it fixed our situation.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c02466839&jumpi...

[Leo1109]

Hello everyone, in our group we have tried everything imaginable to try to get these dual monitors to wake up. We have used the VGA ports and the dongle. We have also installed a DVI adaptor that was approved by our business to use on these desktops. It goes by the name brand Silicon Image with no problems, until Tuesday September 27th. We have deployed two other users using the VGA port and the DVI port from the adaptor mentioned above. We have been troubleshooting ever since to figure out what is the cause of this. This has stalled our migration which is not a good thing, we have tried updating the BIOS but have found that it doesn't help one bit. There has to be a fix for this, I saw the post on replacing the VGA and display adaptor port ( from which we use a dongle) and it seems to have worked. The only issue with that is that is another expense and days or day to get the parts. There has to be a way that HP helps us with this, by warranty or something. Calling the support line has been (no offense) helpless. Most of the guys there don't know what we are talking about or don't have a clue on what to do.

[Leo1109]

We have a fix for our issue,

We removed the DVI adaptor card, and once we powered on the desktop the display port, and VGA port worked. We are again deploying users to new equipment. The DVI adaptors that we where using are supposed to be for Dell laptops from what we found out.

Hope that this helps some of you... GOOD LUCK!!

[deanb85]

Hi All,

I am having the same issue, you can see my setup below.

My second monitor is the one connected to the HDMI > DVI cable.

Do you think its worth getting another HDMI > DVI cable and get rid of the DVI > DVI cable?

Seems to just go into sleep mode (sometimes) and not come back..

[theharveyman]

Was a fix ever found for this issue?  We rolled out a large number of these desktops this summer and receive several calls to the Help Desk for secondary monitors not waking up each week. 

[CarlEA]

Hi,

This is "CarlA".  We identified a bug in the firmware for the DP-VGA dongle, where with some specific graphics solutions,the dongle will not recover from sleep mode.  It is not 100% failure, and should be relatively intermittent.  New product should not have the issue.

Carl

[CarlEA]

Some monitors have a problem with recovering from power savings mode.  These monitor firmware does not have a robust hot plug-and-play solution.   A DVI device should have hot plug-and-play, but if the monitor does not handshake properly, the system will not output DVI video.  A way to work around this is to configure the monitor OSD settings so that the receiver is always on.  There will be a setting in the monitor OSD that gives this option.  This allows the system to "see" the monitor and handshake properly.

[britt471]

I have found somewhat of a solution that worked for me.  On the physical monitor, in the menu, go to "Management."  Under that will be "Power Saver."  When I turn that off on the monitor that doesn't come back up, it fixed my problem.  Hope it works for you!

[eeyinseermstrng]

Same problem on HPE-410f
Also intermittent, running RCA TV for one monitor through HDMI cable , older acer 24" AL2216W for second monitor through PCI cable.
When I reboot or physically turn off monitors with power buttons, issue comes up
Also on reboot, issue comes up intermittently. Reconnecting, disconnecting, etc. have not proven consistently effective.
Changing monitor theme seems to "wake up" secondary monitor more consistently than other methods.