How to wake External Monitors with docked laptop?

[wiseguy_2]

When laptop is docked and idle and any external monitors go black (powered off or power-saving sleep mode), thereafter, no mouse or keyboard activity will wake them. To re-activate the monitors, must physically lift laptop lid a tad, wait a couple seconds until Windows desktop appears *on laptop* screen, then can close lid.  Windows 10 is configured to never Sleep/Hibernate while hard-powered, and set to wake on just about any event (mouse, keyboard, network).

Never had this issue before... Previous laptop (EliteBook), Dock and Windows 7 never required lift of lid to wake monitors from power-save mode.

Current Specs: HP zBook, HP 2013 Ultraslim Docking Station, and Dual HP EliteDisplay E221 external monitors (DisplayPort).

Windows 10. "Balanced" power options.

While Plugged-in, Turn off display: NEVER; Sleep: NEVER.

While On-battery, Turn off display: 10 mins; Sleep: 1 hour.

Press Power button: Do nothing; Close lid: Do nothing.

[wiseguy_2]

WHAT I WOULD LIKE: *ANY* keypress, mouse button click... or even mouse movement to wake the external monitors from their power-saving slumber without touching the laptop or dock at all.  Essentially, if I'm in the room and everything is physically powered-on, the laptop and external screens should be near instant available 24x7.

Previously, with Windows 7 EliteBook laptop and dock, the same external monitors seemed to honor the Windows setting: "While Plugged-in, Turn off display: X"  where X might be 'after 2 hours or 'Never' and the screens could stay on (not power-save) for days.  And if they did go into power-save mode, a simple mouse wiggle would resume the Desktop display within 1-2 seconds.

[wiseguy_2]

UPDATE: It seems that once the external monitors have gone black for any reason, such as via manual power-switch-off or any sort of power-saving mode, then Windows 10 display settings are getting auto reset back to "Display to PC screen only"... as-if the laptop was undocked.
Current Workarounds are:
1) Lift closed lid of docked laptop momentarily, wait for Windows desktop to display on laptop, close lid. External monitors then work.

2) Press Fn+F4 (or WindowsLogo+P) on external keyboard 2-3 times. This key combo activates Windows "Project" pop-out overlay and toggles thru the options: PC screen only, Duplicate, Extend, Second screen only. I use "Extend", so must press the key combo three times. The first combo press won't display anything because the (closed & docked) laptop is still in "PC screen only" mode. (Windows Search "project to a second screen" will also bring up the pop-out overlay.)

REVISED QUESTION: Is there a way to prevent Windows from resetting Display to "PC screen only" if laptop remains docked... regardless of whether external monitors go into auto-sleep mode, or get manually powered-off and back on?

[wiseguy_2 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: It appears something may have changed in Windows 10 between builds 1607 (Anniversary) and 1703 (Creators) to cause Windows to not properly auto-detect when external monitor power resumes. *and/or* there's an issue with the default "Generic PnP Monitor" driver.

SOLUTION: Update the display driver, from "Generic PnP Monitor", to something more specific to the actual monitor model in-use (HP EliteDisplay E221).

FIX STEPS: Display settings, Display adapter properties, "Monitor" tab, Properties, (Click "Allow" if prompted), "Driver" tab, Update Driver, Search automatically for updated driver software...

TO TEST: With laptop docked, powered on, lid closed (with Windows set to 'Do nothing when lid closed')... Manually power-off external monitor(s), wait 20 seconds, power-on monitor(s).  When NOT using the Generic display driver, Windows should auto-detect when external monitor power has resumed and remember the Display "Extend" setting.