Solved: External monitor - HP Support Community

2776drak · ‎08-10-2018

Trying to add an external monitor to my laptop, see products above. Connected with VGA cable. Monitor defaults to DVI and indicates no signal from VGA or DVI. Laptop will detect the monitor but will not duplicate screen or extend. Monitor immediately goes into sleep mode after it’s powered on. What am I missing? I know the laptop is older and perhaps the graphics card doesn’t support the external monitor? Is there a fix or an adapter I can purchase to make it work?

David_J_W · ‎08-12-2018

The setup doesn't seem doomed - in particular the monitor resolution seems to be within the laptop GPU's capabilities if I've found the right specification, though you don't say exactly which variant of the G60 you have.

A digital interconnect is preferable to an analog one - the picture quality tends to be a little better and there is less chance of getting timing issues. It should be possible to use a HDMI to single link DVI cable to connect the laptop and monitor. That said, it would be good to get things working with what you have before spending any money.

A possible root cause of your current issue is that the laptop doesn't know how to output the correct 1600 x 900 resolution for the monitor. It might be possible to program this resolution - though I would expect you to get some sort of picture if you set 1024 x 768 on the laptop to start with. If you post the exact G60 model you have and what type of GPU (check in Device Manager or System Information if you don't know), this can be investigated if nothing else here helps.

Another possible root cause is that the VGA cable is bad. Check for bent pins and that both ends are pressed fully home.

It might be as simple as connecting everything up, turning it on, waiting until you are logged in to Windows then holding down Fn and pressing F4 a few times (pausing a couple of seconds after each press) to see if that brings the external monitor to life.

View solution in original post

David_J_W · ‎08-12-2018

The setup doesn't seem doomed - in particular the monitor resolution seems to be within the laptop GPU's capabilities if I've found the right specification, though you don't say exactly which variant of the G60 you have.

A digital interconnect is preferable to an analog one - the picture quality tends to be a little better and there is less chance of getting timing issues. It should be possible to use a HDMI to single link DVI cable to connect the laptop and monitor. That said, it would be good to get things working with what you have before spending any money.

A possible root cause of your current issue is that the laptop doesn't know how to output the correct 1600 x 900 resolution for the monitor. It might be possible to program this resolution - though I would expect you to get some sort of picture if you set 1024 x 768 on the laptop to start with. If you post the exact G60 model you have and what type of GPU (check in Device Manager or System Information if you don't know), this can be investigated if nothing else here helps.

Another possible root cause is that the VGA cable is bad. Check for bent pins and that both ends are pressed fully home.

It might be as simple as connecting everything up, turning it on, waiting until you are logged in to Windows then holding down Fn and pressing F4 a few times (pausing a couple of seconds after each press) to see if that brings the external monitor to life.

2776drak · ‎08-12-2018

Thank you so much. The fix was as simple as lowering the resolution on the laptop screen per your suggestion! Extended view success!

External monitor

Create an account on the HP Community to personalize your profile and ask a question