Question Laptop detects second monitor but the monitor remains black (no video input)

[Frozen Fire]

(Disclaimer: There are indeed similar posts to this one, but either they don't provide an answer or an answer that doesn't work for me)

Hi there!

This morning I got myself a new monitor (Philips 243V7QDAB) to replace my previous monitor that stopped working, and it works like a charm on my desktop (HP h8-1200eb) connected with VGA.

So I thought I would connect the monitor as a second screen to my laptop (HP Elitebook 850 G4) with the exact same cable, but that doesn't seem to work. My laptop detects the screen, and I can move a tab over to the monitor, but the monitor doesn't show it. In fact, it doesn't"t show anything and instead remains black and occasionally shows the message "No video input". Bear in mind that I have never connected a second screen to my laptop, but it seems it should be easy enough to pull off.

I have:

• Turned everything on and off
• Disconnected and once again plugged in the cable
• Checked whether the monitor is searching VGA connections
• Tested both duplicate and extend screen
• Tested if the monitor still works with my desktop (it does)
• Checked whether for some reason everything would work if I just switched the ends of the VGA cable 😆
• Disabled (might not be the correct word) display adapter drivers, then updated them
• Checked for Windows updates (everything is up to date)
• Contemplated giving up, but the screen is just to friking beautiful not to use with my laptop
• Written this post 😆

Sooooo... What would you do if you were in my place?

Many many thanks in advance, and a bit of love <3

Frozen Fire

 

[Lutfij]

Can you check and post back with what version of the laptop's BIOS you're currently on? If you have any BIOS updates pending, see if the updates remove the issue you're seeing. You can then try and look at uninstalling and reinstalling your GPU drivers. Speaking of GPU, does the laptop come with a discrete GPU and the iGPU or only the iGPU? I'm reading that the laptop should have an AMD discrete GPU.

 

[Frozen Fire]

Hi Lutfij!

First of all, thank you for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate that!

I have executed all your suggestions. I'm now running on the newest BIOS version available for my laptop, and have uninstalled and reinstalled both GPU's (because yes indeed, as you say, I have both a discrete GPU (Radeon(TM) R7 M465) and an iGPU (Intel(R) HD Graphics 620)). This has sadly enough not helped.

I have tested some more things:

• Tested another VGA cable (even though I knew this wasn’t the problem, but just to be extra sure)
• Done a hard reset (for as much as pressing the power button for 15 seconds on my laptop while it's off does that, as I can't find any specific information on how to do a hard reset for my laptop. I don't get a special screen afterwards when it boots up, which it seems I should get.)
• Checked for Windows updates
• Checked for updates via HP Support Assistant
• Worked through “Display Issue Troubleshooting” within HP Support Assistant

At this point, I feel like I should just give up and not spend any more time on this. But it seems so stupid not to be able to use this brand new screen with my laptop.

Have you perhaps got some more idea's?

Thanks again

Frozen Fire