External monitors often going off and on

[Andog1]

Wondering if anyone has really come up with a permanent solution to this irritating problem.  I used to have an HP docking station for my Pavilion 15 and one monitor, sometimes two, would just go black.  This will happen twenty to forty times a day.  Talk about a productivity killer.  That docking station croaked, but not before I could test it on my personal ASUS Tuf Gaming laptop.  No problem at all with that laptop.  When the HP station dies, I bought a UGREEN CM681 off Amazon.  Has the same problem as the old HP unit with the HP laptop, and, again, zero problems with my ASUS laptop.  I can't get any meaningful support from anyone in the electronic food chain for this HP laptop.  At this point, I think I'm just going to order myself another ASUS machine and put it on my company CC.BTW, my ASUS has an AMD processor vs the Intel 13th gen i7 in my HP.  

[Jelibeli]

In the end, our IT team accidentally gave me a dell monitor with a built-in dock (it was supposed to just be a monitor), so I tried connecting to that instead of my HP dock and it works a treat!.  I connect to that monitor via usb-C, plug the power supply direct to my laptop, and the dell docking monitor takes care of all my USB, networking and additional monitors.  It does mean two connections instead of just one, and I can't leave my laptop PSU in my bag, but it has got rid of the infuriating monitor blanking.

[pharr2001]

I am having the same issue. Any luck with a solution? 

[Andog1]

I sure haven't found anything that helps.  I can't say this with certainty, but my gut feeling is that this is an issue that only appears on units equipped with Intel processors.  I spoke with Nvidia and they advised that the Intel Iris graphics controls everything, including if and how the nvidia graphics card is deployed.  I do note that my personal Asus Tuf Gamer laptop with its AMD processor never experiences this issue.  So, when someone in my office needs a new laptop, i am going to order up another ASUS unit with an AMD CPU and give this HP to whomever needs a new laptop.  Other than this monitor issue, my HP unit is really just fine.  I'd be happy with it if it didn't have this blinking monitor problem.

[DunebuggyJay]

Mine has been fixed with updating to latest Bios update in my HP Zbook, and also latest firmware update to my docking station.

The HP support assistant, said I was up to date.

But going to the HP support website, and putting in my serial number..it found a bunch of updates. Did the bios and firmware..and now works like it should. 

I had been dealing with this for years. Better cables never helped with my setup. 

[bainster]

>   I spoke with Nvidia and they advised that the Intel Iris graphics controls everything, including if and how the nvidia graphics card is deployed.

What they said isn't true. On my laptop, the Nvidia GPU is hardwired to the USB-C DisplayPort connectors. The external monitors black out because the Nvidia driver misconfigures the hardware, and the DisplayPort 1.2 bandwidth limit is exceeded by the triple monitor setup (even though the dock and laptop USB-C are both DisplayPort 1.4 capable). It's easy to verify this by running Linux with the open source Nouveau driver, which works perfectly. But install the Nvidia driver, and it blacks out exactly the same as Windows.

[RobertYuile]

I’ve not found a fix however, pressing down on the top of the docking station (resetting it), brings the monitors back on. It’s not ideal but it works.

[Jax38]

Hi community,

About 9 to 12 months go, I posted resolution, albeit not elegant. I changed to good quality 4k hdmi cables among other observations. You will have to go back to review exactly what I did among others. 

It was not software or firmware update. I also suggested that everyone notify HP support so that they have data on this persistent issue.

[Jax38]

Hi there, my originally reported issue has been resolved through buying 4K cables supporting four monitors now. Specific details including not introducing adapters convert display port to hdmi. My post was about 9 months ago, if not a year.

Good luck, all. It was very painful for a while.

[pt64a]

We are seeing this on a variety of hardware combinations - all on Windows 11

HP Elitebook 840 G10 and G11

On HP USB-C Docks and 3rd party USB-C Docks

On DPORT, HDMI and VGA cables

So, replacing HDMI cables isn't an option.  Very annoying.