2nd Monitor nightmare!

The main monitor only has only the HDMI , the 2nd monitor 1xHDMI and 1xVGA the same as the GPU.

Well, my only thought is that your monitor is going to sleep and Windows just thinks you unplugged your monitor and doesn't bother to send a signal to wake it.

The mystery is that the old monitor works perfectly on the desktop with the same settings and the new monitor works perfectly on my laptop. The new monitor also works perfectly for hours on end on my desktop .... the problem occurs when I reboot or until I bring it out of sleep mode. It is midnight here now and so I will leave it and have another look at it tomorrow. Appreciate your suggestions.

That is a good suggestion as the problem seems to be in that direction. It has a Source Control Menu which allows you to select but it has so far accurately shown that it is connected to VGA when there is a signal. You can also select Auto Switch or Default Source and I have tried each one to see if that works better on start-up or restart. But unfortunately it makes no difference.

There is only one sure way to get the monitor working which is as follows. Prior to shut down set the main monitor as the only one in Screen Resolution. Next time before you boot-up disconnect the VGA cable and switch off the power on the 2nd monitor. Once the computer is up and running open the Screen Resolution menu and select 'Extend these Monitors' and than reconnect the VGA cable and switch on and the 2nd monitor will now start up and function normally. I suspect a problem with the Video card ... maybe a faulty VGA terminal or other connection which for some reason will function with the old computer but not the new one on boot-up.

Well, I sure hope so, (or maybe something simpler) I'm all out of ideas. Best of luck though.

~ Chris

Found out something new. With both monitors working correctly ... when I reboot or bring them out of sleep mode the 2nd monitor will 95% of the time be blank or very occasionally display badly.In both cases when I check with ''Screen Resolution' I find that the 2nd monitor is shown as a Generic Non-PnP Monitor with a 1600 x 1080 resolution instead of the correct one with 1920 x 1200. Maybe that is why to get it to display properly I have to bootup on the main one only and when Win 7 is running connect the 2nd one. It seems that a normal bootup with both recognizes it only as a Generic Non-PnP Monitor. But why??

Note to self: Don't buy an HP monitor. :)