Secondary monitor stops working after computer restart or sleep

Question

Hardware and setup:

• Dell XPS 15 Laptop
• Intel i7
• Nvidia 435M
• Win 7 64 bit
• 8GB Ram

My secondary monitor stops working after I reset or sleep my computer. It temporarily works after doing a clean install of the the Nvidia Driver.

I have tried various combinations of drivers, both from the official Dell site as well as from Nvidia's driver site, trying every single driver available from both sites.

By not working after a restart or sleep, I usually mean that the monitor is not detected, but if it is left plugged in when working and then restarted, it will bounce back and forth, between being recognized and working to not being recognized. In other words, my screen goes: Primary monitor only -> Flashes off -> Both monitors working -> flashes off -> primary monitor only -> and so on in a loop.

I've tried both the HDMI port as well as the Minidisplay port and receive the same result on HDMI and DVI monitors, trying it with different cables and monitors. Interesting note: hooking it up to a VGA monitor (via Minidisplayport to VGA) then it works as expected.

I recently had to do an entirely clean reinstall of Win 7 and the issue persists now, so I don't think it was an installation specific problem.

I have tried for a very long time to remedy this issue and have run out of ideas.

Answer 1

I am experiencing this same problem with monitors at my company. Specifically the Dell P190St monitor. We have traced it to be a monitor issue, as swapping the monitors with a different model fixes the issue 100% of the time. If you have something else to try this with, just to test. I suggest doing so.

Answer 2

A fresh install of Windows fixed the problem. Uninstalling and deleting residual graphics driver files did not work.