Question Second screen suddenly not working if refresh rate is set equal or below 60 hz

Jan 3, 2024
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I've been using this setup for almost a year now. Most days it would work just fine the whole day, but some days it flickers, or I need to keep reconnecting it dozens of times, etc... but eventually it'd would stabilize and let me work.

But in these last weeks my display has been especially unstable, flickering a lot, showing red pixels everywhere, and most times it goes full black (not turn off)... I bought a new HDMI cable and at first it helped, the screen turned on and got stable for some hours... but suddenly it went full black again, despite both the monitor and my laptop acting like the connection was functioning just fine. Whenever I disconnect the HDMI, my monitor goes back to its "No connection found" screen - which has some colors and fine details -, and it displays everything clearly and stable, so the issue is not with the display.

After doing a lot of tests with the scale, resolution, refresh rate, colors, and messing with Windows screen settings and Intel Graphics Center, I got it: If connected to this laptop, my monitor is only displaying anything at all when I bring the resolution down to 800x600, because then I get a Refresh Rate option of 60,004 hz (it turns on and stabilizes, displaying some flicks and red pixels sometimes...), but with any option listed equal or below 60 hz, the monitor will go full black.

What could I do? I understand that different refresh rates are available to different resolutions, but my monitor supposedly is compatible with up to 60 hz, so I'd expect the monitor not to work when above 60 hz, but it's happening exactly the oposite...

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3, running Windows 10 Enterprise, with 12th Gen i7 (1265U) and Intel Iris Xe Graphics. My External monitor is a LG 22MP55, and it has nothing related to update, refresh, frame, rate, hz or anything in the OSD... I'm using HDMI 2.0.

Sorry for this huge text, but I thank you all in advance. Peace.
 
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

First off, see if your laptop is pending any BIOS updates. Following that check to see if your OS is pending any updates. Once you've performed the prior two, you can use DDU, remove all GPU drivers(AMD, Nvidia and lastly Intel) then manually install the latest GPU driver(sourced from intel's support site) in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

Side note, have you tried working with another cable?