Windows 7 and dual monitor craziness

Leodido · 1 Mar 2010 at 10:57

Hello all,

I just recently finished building my new rig and installed windows 7, everything worked fine for a few weeks but I encountered a new problem today.

My computer is hooked to my 22'' LCD screen and on my Panasonic 42'' TV.

Since this morning Windows detect my 22'' as a "non-pnp Generic Monitor" on which I can't modify the resolution (it is stuck at 800x600) and my panasonic TV is being used as the primary screen.

Apparently windows can't detect my LCD correctly but I can't for the life of me figure out why since it worked perfectly well for a few weeks.

I tried re-installing ATI drivers and such but it did not do anything, unplugging the TV and having only my screen but it's all the same even in safe mode it is borked.

Any help would be appreciated.

gazjam · 1 Mar 2010 at 11:21

I had that with Windows Server 2008R2 (Win 7 based)

I had to recreate a new Monitor EDID profile using teh graphics utility Powerstrip.
Quite easy to do, the basic idea is you create a custom monitor profile with the desired resolution then save it somewhere.

Reinstall the driver for your monitor using the newly created file and that hopefully will get things back on track.

This happened to my completely by random, and was pulling my hair out till I found the above solution.

Hope this helps.

Leodido · 1 Mar 2010 at 15:55

Ok so I tried your solution but it did not work, windows would change the generic crap to my real monitor but no way to use the native resolution.

To make it work I had to use the VGA cable instead of the DVI, windows instantly discovered it and changed correctly the resolution.

I've always had issues with DVI, is it just totally crap or what?

gazjam · 1 Mar 2010 at 16:08

aye, totally crap.
Maybe I was just lucky...sounds like a driver detection glitch in Win7 maybe....I'm using the 64bit Server OS, dont know if thats different?

Have you tried the monitor again with the DVI cable, not that windows has re-recognised it?
Maybe worth a punt to get back on DVI?

Also, try swapping cables or whatever?

Good Luck!

Actually, is the difference between the two enough to bother you?
If not...problem solved!

Stripes · 1 Mar 2010 at 16:54

Strange, I've had exactly the same thing happen to my Viewsonic VX2025wm this past week. It'll only work using the VGA input, on both my main Win7 box and a WinXP Pro box the DVI-In on the monitor no longer works. It's definitely an issue with the monitor IMO.

I'm going to try a DVI-Recover boot disk to see if that does the job.

Leodido · 1 Mar 2010 at 18:53

gazjam said:
aye, totally crap.
Maybe I was just lucky...sounds like a driver detection glitch in Win7 maybe....I'm using the 64bit Server OS, dont know if thats different?

Have you tried the monitor again with the DVI cable, not that windows has re-recognised it?
Maybe worth a punt to get back on DVI?

Also, try swapping cables or whatever?

Good Luck!

Actually, is the difference between the two enough to bother you?
If not...problem solved!

I'm using 64bit Windows 7 so that's the same for us.

Yep I tried to plug back in the DVI cable but it reverts back to the old crap so I stayed with the VGA for the moment

Is there any differences between VGA and DVI to begin with lol ? Beside DVI being crap and malfunctioning every so often