2nd Monitor nightmare!

Thank you for your suggestions which are welcome. I have already tried most of them. With regards the generic drivers ... I do not think the problem is there because my 2nd monitor is now shown correctly as 'HP x2301 Micro Thin Monitor' with the correct resolution of 1920 x 1080 but when it comes out of sleep mode or restart the screen is blank and after coming out of sleep mode it shows it is not receiving a signal whereas it was working perfectly before.

I first suspected a faulty monitor because my previous one worked ok, but the new monitor has now worked perfectly on 2 other computers ... in fact I did not even have to load the drivers from the CD ... just plugged it in and it worked at once. It also works on my desktop at certain times ... the nightmare is that there is no pattern ... sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't with with or without the correct drivers. However on the desktop it never works from bootup or coming out of sleep mode. I am inclined to think that the fault lies with the video card maybe not making a proper connection because sometimes for no obvious reason the monitor shows that there is no VGA signal. When I have more time I will remove it and re-install it.

I removed and cleaned the video card and reinstalled it but it made no difference. I than re-connected my old HP w22 monitor which previously gave no problem but which now also gives some problems. Or I should say that it causes the main monitor to remain blank when booting up. The 2nd monitor than switches itself to becomes the main one and in order to start up the main I have to open Screen Resolution and choose Detect ... both screens than go blank and come on showing both monitors working correctly. Unlike with the previous new 2nd I am now getting a consistent pattern and it seems obvious that the problem lies with the fact that the monitors are not being detected properly when booting up and also not always when coming out of sleep mode. Maybe someone can tell me where the cause of this could lie. Would it be a faulty video card?

I replaced the NVIDEO card and everything worked perfectly .... Problem resolved !

Awesome. I guess this just goes to show just how complex computer hardware is now. :)

~Chris