Windows 10 sees much more monitors than I have

After a recent update, or after I played around with installing Ionic Framework and Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition, right after a restart, I suddenly have not 2, but several monitors detected by Windows 10.

Screen 1 is my laptop screen, and screen 2 is my monitor, connected via HDMI. When they first appeared, some of them were duplicated in groups of 2, while others were extensions.

When I disconnect my monitor, these screens don't disappear, and even worse - I can't disconnect one of these "screens", so I have to duplicate it with my laptop screen.

I have alleviated all major symptoms of the problem, except for one more: The sound from the speakers embedded in my monitor has also ceased to work.

With all of that, I really don't want to fix any more symptoms, but want to get to the core of the problem and remove all of this junk.

I tried uninstalling Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 drivers, but they got themselves re-installed and all of this junk re-appeared again.
I tried several restarts obviously, and it didn't help.
I tried disabling the device from the device manager and it didn't have any effect. Under the "Monitors" section of the Device Manager in Windows I have 4x "Generic Non-PnP Monitor", and 2x "Generic PnP Monitor".
I tried restoring from a restore point but that failed miserably (with a memory error right at the start).

What might be causing it? And how can I fix it?

AlexanderMP

Posted 2016-12-03T17:51:46.793

Reputation: 546

open device manager, goto monitors, remove all non PnP... – Adam Silenko – 2016-12-03T17:58:55.870

They re-appear immediately afterwards – AlexanderMP – 2016-12-03T18:25:57.967

select one, display property window, go to details tab, write device ID and Path – Adam Silenko – 2016-12-03T18:51:12.420

No device ID field, nor field that would yield anything useful, but here is the Device instance path: DISPLAY\Default_Monitor\4&23ACA7F2&1&UID200779 DISPLAY\Default_Monitor\4&23aca7f2&1&UID208979 DISPLAY\Default_Monitor\4&23aca7f2&1&UID217179 DISPLAY\Default_Monitor\4&23aca7f2&1&UID225379

The other 2 I recognize as a Philips (external monitor) and LG (laptop screen probably) – AlexanderMP – 2016-12-03T19:20:10.797

did you have some virtual desktop? – Adam Silenko – 2016-12-03T19:49:13.327

Not that I know of. Nothing is different in that regard. What exactly am I looking for? – AlexanderMP – 2016-12-03T20:08:18.010

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

– AlexanderMP – 2016-12-03T20:19:34.507

Answers

On the rare occasions that I have seen this happen before, it is usually caused by the display driver.

Faced with the same scenario, I would manually create a System Restore point as a potential fall-back and then check for an updated graphics driver to install. If you are already running the latest version, try dropping back to an older version and see if it alleviates the problem.

Run5k

Posted 2016-12-03T17:51:46.793

Reputation: 13 092

1After your answer, I tried getting an even older version of the driver (from May or June 2016). Before that I got the latest from Intel, which was already older than the one installed by Windows updates. This solved my issue with the monitors. I still have no sound, but I guess that's a different topic. Thanks! – AlexanderMP – 2016-12-03T21:59:12.520

@AlexanderMP does Ionic enable / require hyper-v? Seems like a couple of us are seeing the same issue you had, and I resolved it the same way you did (installing older drivers). I was using hyper-v through docker, though.

– dvlsg – 2016-12-07T18:19:50.283

@dvlsg, no, I don't think it did install hyper-v. It would have conflicted with my pre-existing virtualBox installation. I haven't had much time to explore this issue since then. I preferred using my second OS - Ubuntu for multimedia and work. I'll probably just trash the OS entirely because nothing that i did brought the sound back. – AlexanderMP – 2016-12-07T21:31:02.537

In case someone else is having the same problem, this is what worked for me. I am on an Asus N550JV and the problem occurs only with hyper-V enabled.

Device Manager -> Display Drivers -> right-click on Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 -> Update Driver -> browse My Computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list -> Choose the device driver whose version starts with 10.* I have two more options that their version starts with 20.* and neither of them fixed my problem.

You might need to download the drivers from the official site (Intel).

user556438

Posted 2016-12-03T17:51:46.793

Reputation:

Having the same issue on Windows 10 after installing Hyper-V for docker. I can confirm this solution work for me after installing the 10.18.15.4256 driver for my HD Graphics 4600. – creekorful – 2017-12-02T07:51:28.187

Asus laptop - Upgraded Windows 10 to Pro, enabled Hyper-V, gave same issue. Upgrading to driver 15.40.37.4835 solved issue. – Nattrass – 2018-03-18T16:06:51.063

It's funny that every time I have the same problem I end up here not remembering that I posted this :D – None – 2018-04-30T19:55:09.277

I have just resolved this issue on my N550JV. The issue was definitely laptop using nvidia instead of Intel graphics by default after Hyper-V is enabled (I think intel driver is actually were crashing when in hyper-V mode).

Just deleting Intel driver caused windows to install 10.18.15.4256

2018-08-13T08:12:25.593

Intel's most recent drivers for this graphics adaptor (version 15.40.37.4835) seem to fix the problem of phantom monitors when Hyper-V is enabled.

toby1kenobi

Posted 2016-12-03T17:51:46.793

Reputation: 181

I can confirm, I just updated the driver (just through device manager; it found the correct one). This updated to driver version 20.19.15.4835 and it's all better now. – Iguananaut – 2018-02-26T10:27:34.770

I also agree. This solve the problem by upgrading to the version @Iguananaut mentionned. Thanks – vdegenne – 2018-03-22T22:29:16.857