Dell with External Monitor

[imadoofus]

I've got a Latitude D620, with a PR01X Port Replicator, and a 19" 4:3 aspect LCD monitor.

Up unitl a couple of days ago, all was well. The monitor happily mirrored the laptop, and displayed 1280*800 resolution, with black margins top and bottom.

Over the weekend, I had the laptop off th edocking station, as I do often. This morning, when I put it back, the external monitor will only 'mirror' the laptop when the laptop lid is open. When closed, the external monito defaulted to 4:3 aspect. I could manually reset it to 1280*768, but the laptop's on 1280*800.

I have trawled Google, and several forums, and also spend 45 minutes in online chat with a Dell techy, but so far, no fix.

I've updated drivers, changed the monitor to a digital rather than analogue connection, restarted the laptop in umpteen different configurations, and nothing works.

Any ideas anyone?

TIA

PJ

 

[grober]

There's normally a sensor (a proximity magnet type thingy on my old latitude portable) which senses when the lid is shut and switches off the display and in certain cases will switch the laptop into standby mode. If this was faulty before-maybe your laptop display didn't go off as it should when you shut the lid? and now its working as it was originally designed to do that would explain it-- OK I'm clutching at straws here- but you never know??

 

[imadoofus]

I have (and always had) my laptop set to 'do nothing' when I close the lid

 

[Muppetz]

I have (and always had) my laptop set to 'do nothing' when I close the lid

When you open the lid again, after say 1 minute, is the laptop now resuming from standby or still in normal active mode ? (I guess I'm trying to get you to check that the laptop is still set to do nothing when you close the lid, and to prove it to yourself too )

Also there is a function button on the laptop (usually combination of FN+F8) which will select between the internal monitor, the external monitor, and both. You could try changing this as perhaps it may have an effect ?

 

[Sp!ke]

This setting is in the advanced options in the power management console.

However, I dont believe this to be your problem. The issue is far more likely to be a graphics card driver issue or corrupt docking profile.

Which graphics card option do you have, Nvidia or Intel graphics?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Have you completely powered down at all?

Close down the laptop completely and undock it.

With it still powered off, redock and turn the laptop on.

Does that help?

 

[imadoofus]

When you open the lid again, after say 1 minute, is the laptop now resuming from standby or still in normal active mode ? (I guess I'm trying to get you to check that the laptop is still set to do nothing when you close the lid, and to prove it to yourself too )

Also there is a function button on the laptop (usually combination of FN+F8) which will select between the internal monitor, the external monitor, and both. You could try changing this as perhaps it may have an effect ?

It's still doing nothing. And I can only get to Fn+F8 when the lid is open, at which point I can switch between laptop, dual display or external only. With the lid shut, I can't get to Fn+F8

 

[imadoofus]

This setting is in the advanced options in the power management console.

However, I dont believe this to be your problem. The issue is far more likely to be a graphics card driver issue or corrupt docking profile.

Which graphics card option do you have, Nvidia or Intel graphics?

Intel. My dual/single monitor settings are found in the Intel GMA Driver utility.

 

[imadoofus]

Have you completely powered down at all?

Close down the laptop completely and undock it.

With it still powered off, redock and turn the laptop on.

Does that help?

Nope.

That's nope, it doesn't help, rather than nope I haven't tried.

I thought this might be related to my problem, because I rarely turn off the laptop, I just hibernate it. But, over the weekend, while undocked, I did fully shut it down, and I guessed that when it restarted, it didn't find an external monitor, so it reset itself. So I tried fully shutting down and restarting on the docking station (3 times) this morning, but to no avail.

 

[Sp!ke]

Bootup undocked and then assuming your running XP, right click my computer and select propeties, Hardware tab, then hardware Profiles and then highlight the Dell D-Port Profile.

Reboot the pc once again while docked and it will recreate the docked profile and in theory clear the problem.

If this doesnt work it'll be the graphics card driver (but I assume you've already reinstalled this).

{EDIT} I meant to say highlight the Dell D-Port Profile and delete it.

 

[imadoofus]

Thanks Sp!ke. I'll try this & report back...