Dual monitors won't "wake up" after sleep

Question

My laptop is set to go to sleep when not in use, but when I have it set to use Dual screens, after I "wake it up", all I can see is the mouse on the second screen, flickering. If I unplug the VGA cable, the laptop screen wakes up, and I can see the log-in screen. Once I plug the VGA cable back in, the second screen "wakes up" too.

This problem does not occur on startup, and I have set the second screen to be my main display - but I do often disconnect the laptop to take it with me. I have also changed the settings to make the laptop screen my main display, and the issue still occurs, just on the laptop screen instead.

This has only just started happening, around the time of the last update (2017-06 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB4022715)).

Running Windows 10 Home, Acer Aspire E 15. Let mem know if additional information is required.

Answer 1

I had a similar issue with one of my dual monitors not showing up after resuming from sleep. I used the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Win+B to restart the graphics driver and my main screen flickered off and then both screens turned on.

There's some more information in this question.

Answer 2

Perhaps it'll be useful to anyone:

My unit is old Fujitsu P710, fairly standard business aimed, core i3 based pc. BIOS: Aptio Setup Utility | Code ver. 4.6.5.3

I fixed the issue with secondary monitor not waking up after exiting sleep mode by changing bios settings:

Go to Power tab: change "Hibernate like Soft OFF" value to disabled.

Save & exit.

That's it. Problem went away in my case.

Answer 3

Here are some troubleshooting steps that may help in solving that issue.

• Open Power Option and click on Change plan settings then Change advanced power settings.
• Expand Hard disk then Turn off hard disk after and set it to Never.
• Expand Allow hybrid sleep and set it to Never, set Hibernate after to Never as well.
• On Power Option main menu, on the left pane click on Change what the power buttons do.
• Once open under Shutdown settings remove the check on Turn on fast startup then click Save changes.
• Also do disable the screen saver mode of your PC when it idles.
• Next is to do a clean install of your graphics card driver as well.
• Please do follow the guide in this article on how to do a clean install of your GPU driver. http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2767677/clean-graphics-driver-install-windows.html

Answer 4

I have a PC with dual monitors and use the latest version of win10. I have increasingly had issues with the graphics side since upgrading to win 10, most I have lived with or overcome to a certain extent. My latest issue has been related to sleep mode start up, without going into too much detail this was overcome by changing from sleep to hibernation. Now the PC is in hibernation mode the 2nd monitor will not wake up until I restart the PC. I don't like to be beaten and have spent a lot of time going around in circles, the PC was a high end spec when built in 2011 but the root of the problems are due to the graphics chipset on the mobo do not support win 10. It's not obvious until I contacted asrock who confirmed this. The PC still works well when running but I am going to change the mobo for one that supports win10. In summary if something in your PC/laptop is not compatible with the latest win10 update you can spend a lot of time chasing your tail until you hit a brick wall. Hope this helps. Update - have changed motherboard to one with a Win10 compatible chipset and the problem has disappeared.

Answer 5

I have yet to locate the solution to this issue, but an easier work-around than rebooting is to switch your display to mirror mode. This wakes the second monitor immediately, and then simply click revert in the "are you sure" popup to get back to your desired setting. Its still annoying, but this is a faster way to get thru it in the meantime.

Answer 6

ati radeon HD 3850 does work with 2 screens but screen 2 doesn't start after sleep. Workaround. Screen settings, copy screen change into extend screen. (Screen will wake up) revert the setting to either extend or copy This works in a AMD 64 win 10 with fall update problem. screens are Acer AL1916w and Neovo 17e My setup worked flawless with w10 64 amd processor and hd3850 but after fall update recently...neovo e-17 screen keeps in standby (yellow light) only wakes up when change settings from extend to copy or visa versa. Problem is Windows update. But here is my workaround.

Answer 7

I found a simple solution I make sure that no monitor is using VGA. It seems that Windows 10 will "wake up" the Digital Monitor (HDMI/DVI/DP) but not VGA. I have had to remove the VGA connection on countless users computers to get around the problem.

I have tried to use the DP to VGA, HDMI to VGA and DVI to VGA converters but that does not seem to solve the problem. The monitor works correctly with DVI to HDMI, mini DP to DVI and DP to DVI.