TV device disapears when turned off when connected via HDMI to PC

I have 2 monitors and 1 TV hooked up as a monitor to a 660 ti GPU (this works when all on). When the TV is off, there is no visible device to extend a display to but when it's on there is. I wanted to use the TV to display Windows Media Center in another room but every time the TV is turned off, the display effectively vanishes.

Is there a way to make the TV device persistently "known" by my Win 7 PC? I might as well be pulling the HDMI cable out every time I'm done using it which is absurd.

Related: When I turn the TV off if I was playing a game on another monitor, the GPU seems to re-poll all connections and I have to minimize and resume my game for it to display again. If it didn't have to remove the TV device or whatever it's doing, then I imagine this wouldn't be a problem.

To clarify - I require a solution that works around what is expected since what is expected is not good enough.

Enigma

Posted 2013-04-02T15:17:50.883

Reputation: 3 181

Answers

A product like this will theoretically keep the display info alive.

Enigma

Posted 2013-04-02T15:17:50.883

Reputation: 3 181

Expected behaviour. When your TV turns off it switches off the power to the HDMI port so your computer thinks you have disconnected the device (HDMI is plug and play like USB). This setting is likely changed on your TV (put to sleep instead of turn off) and not much you can do on the computer.

Ali

Posted 2013-04-02T15:17:50.883

Reputation: 1 151

My HDMI monitor doesn't have this problem even when I turn it off entirely. Can I set the TV to retain the HDMI connection? – Enigma – 2013-04-02T15:31:31.443

@Enigma You would likely see the same issue on the monitor if you switched it off at the power supply (disconnect power cord). Its up to the TV manual to tell you if a solution exists. Can you rename the HDMI connection on the TV. Try naming it 'PC' instead. – Ali – 2013-04-02T15:34:30.227

I'll play around with the settings but likely not. Just thought of this but what if I set the TV to be a duplicate display of the primary monitor (both are same resolution). Is it possible it won't interfere then? I'll try this out also. – Enigma – 2013-04-02T15:38:44.410

1@Enigma - A TV and a Monitor can function differently per the manufactor. I agree with Ali this is expected per the HDMI specification. – Ramhound – 2013-04-02T17:06:55.580

Something like this: http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=8005 from this Q/A: http://superuser.com/q/2093/160458 could be a viable solution to work around this default behavior. It should be possible for the video card driver to do something similar.

– Enigma – 2013-04-02T17:13:45.300