[SOLVED] ThinkVision X1 causing green tint on all other displays

[Rehman5000]

Hello,

I am a very tech savvy person, and this strange issue is really bothering me. I hope someone experienced can help.

The following are my equipment:

• Laptop 1: HP Elitebook 840 G6 (can plug 2 external displays via HDMI and USB-C)
• Laptop 2: Lenovo Ideapad Y700 (can plug 1 external display via HDMI)
• External monitor 1: Dell E2318H (via laptop’s USB-C port, to monitor’s DP port, via converter)
• External monitor 2: Dell E2318H (via laptop’s HDMI port, to monitor’s VGA port, via converter)
• External monitor 3: Lenovo ThinkVision X1 [60E2-GAR1-WW] (via laptop’s HDMI port, to monitor’s VGA port, via converter)

Points to note:

• I often only use the two Dell monitors to connect either of my laptops. And they never had any issues.
• Colour settings on the Dell monitors are checked and carefully set.
• Recently I decided to connect my HP laptop to the ThinkVision X1 monitor, via the HDMI ports. That worked fine without any issue.
• I did not manually install any monitor drivers. All 3 monitors were used as plug-and-play, using Windows default drivers.
• There is no issue whatsoever on the laptop's inbuilt displays - so lets completely ignore those.

The issue arises when I now plug any other display on the HDMI port of the HP laptop (since plugging the X1): the full display from Windows has a blue-green tint (note: the tint is obviously not on the monitor's OSD menu). See attached photos. The tint is strong, even though it doesn't look like much in the photos

The same monitor on the USB-C port works normally, and switching the other Dell monitor on to this HDMI port still shows the green tint. Checked and changed the cable as well, no luck. Completely uninstalled/reinstalled all monitor and VGA drivers, still no luck.

In my early troubleshooting steps, I did the mistake of plugging the X1 to my Y700 laptop. So now even that has a green tint.

The strange part is, the green tint (or blue tint? aqua?) is not showing when I plug in the X1 again. So it is obviously not a cable or port issue.

Searching on Google points to a colour profile misconfiguration, but playing around with it did not change anything. But I must note that I am not familiar with colour profile settings, so I may have missed something here, although it is unlikely.

 

[Rehman5000]

Found the problem: An annoying coincidence!

Before I elaborate what happened, I had also tried:

• Removing and playing around Window's colour profiles. Manually installing the Dell monitor's colour profiles. Nothing made any difference.
• Tried all the available colour caliberation options.
• Wagnardsoft.com's Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). Obviously this did not "solve" my problem, but it is amazing how much of junk it removed from C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository
• Struggling to pinpoint the problem, I even went to the extent of opening up my Y700, removing the current drives, and installing a spare SSD with fresh Windows, to test if the issue is really with Windows. To my sheer horror, the freshly installed Windows also showed the same green-blue tint - without any red.

With the rush of adrenaline - in fear that I had somehow caused some hardware damage to both my expensive laptops, I thought I should try changing the VGA cables (note in my original post, the Dell monitors are connected from the laptop's HDMI port via a converter, through a VGA cable, to the monitor's VGA port. When I plug the laptop to the X1, it uses a direct HDMI connection.

The problem, which wasted so much of my time, and caused so much frustration, was the VGA cable.

The coincidence: That VGA cable is a high quality one, and was regularly used. So I never doubted that something would go wrong with it. The day I first plugged the X1, was a stormy day. And for my bad luck, the VGA cable had failed somewhere after I last used it, and the plugging of the X1.

Bottom line, no matter how tech savvy you are, or how much you trust your equipment. Always do basic tests like checking your cables. I hope this helps anyone reading.

Cheers.