WIN-XP Extended Desktop, both monitors blackout

Received a corporate laptop (Dell-E6420 with docking station) and monitor (Dell E170S) back in June. I set up the monitor (on left side) as extended desktop. All has been working correctly until late yesterday when both displays started to "blackout" for a few seconds then come back on.

The time between blackouts is variable as is the length of time of the blackout. The monitor seems to take longer to recover than the laptop.

I have checked the monitor & video drivers, all are current.

Due to this being a corporate system, I have limited access to some of the core modules. I have attempted to contact our I.T. folks on various issues but they are pretty much clueless on most of the issues beyond resetting a password or 'send us your computer and we will replace it in about 4 weeks'. A co-worker has a similar problem that she has been trying to get resolved, it has been about two weeks now. If this is something I am unable to fix, I am hoping to get some ideas on a direction they need to be looking in.

Thanks. :wave

 

It's normal for the screens to blackout when switching display preferences, so the length of the blackout would be helpful, it could also be caused by a faulty HDMI cable or socket, change the cable then try wiggling both the screen and computer connector while both screens are working to check for a loose connection

Do you know of any updates or software changes you made recently that could have caused this? Could you also post the name of the driver, including version number, date it was installed and vendor, Control panel,device manager then locate your video adapter. If possible post a link to the page you've downloaded it from if you have installed a driver.

How much access do you have? Can you adjust monitor preference or more importantly can you install a driver? Most corporate and school computers I've seen are completely locked out of any advanced video preferences using windows account permissions and additional security software, changing a driver is also a pipe dream, if this is so we cannot help you bypass these restrictions just for your information.

EDIT as a shot in the dark without more info could you double check your energy saving plan, it could be simply a case of the monitors turning off after a set period, control panel, power options , make sure your monitor is set to never turn off or dim.

 

Length is too variable, half-second to about five seconds, there is also no pattern, could be seconds between blackouts or hours. Number of consecutive blackouts can be from one to four.

No HDMI. Main is the laptop built-in display. Nothing from moving the cable on the monitor nor shaking the monitor. Until now, nothing had been moved in the past three weeks. The laptop had been removed from the docking station about two weeks ago for less than an hour.

Software updates/installs: none by me, corporate who knows, they don't tell us (at least it is no longer a frozen screen when they "seize control".).

Don't have access to Device Manager via Control Panel, this is via "My Computer" -> Properties.
Video driver: Intel - 1/6/2011 - ver 6.14.10.5323
Monitor driver (x3): "Plug and Play" - Microsoft - 6/6/2011 - ver: 5.1.2001.1
=> Install dates unknown, corporate has an "image" that they apply to all of these. I have to presume that they get updated drivers before they make the image. There was an I.T. guy out here for a week when all the new computers were installed. As mine was not the first one installed, I am not sure if he updated any drivers, or checked for updates.

Not fully sure of what my access rights are, I can mess with video preferences, not sure about installing a driver, but think I can. Understand that if I can't, this will be futile unless tech-support will listen to me.rolleyes Can change the desktop wall paper, but not the length of time before it locks nor the option for locked/unlocked.

Power settings, (I can adjust), says turn monitor off after 20-minutes.
Problem is that it will blackout while I am typing.

 

I would recommend you double check your driver version is the latest, how did you check it BTW?

There are a couple of other ways anyway the best is to enter your service tag in the dell support page, the next is to find the model of your computer and manually download the driver from 'link below', the third is to download the Intel driver from Intel's support page 'link below', the last is to click update driver in device managers driver page 'leave this until last'.

Had some free time so tried to do some legwork for you.

I noticed the date of driver version is 2011 but on the latitude E6420 page I see a driver listed as 6.14.10.5436, A09 21/05/2013, I can't link directly though just click video at the bottom-

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/uk/en/ukbsdt1/Product/latitude-e6420#

This is for Intel HD 2-4000, go to control panel, device manager and check the name of your video card, if your card is 2-4000 there's no reason it shouldn't work.

Here's the Intel detect utility-

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

Here's the generic Intel driver for all HD 2-4000 running xp 14.51.11.5437 02/13/2013.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...&OSVersion=Windows XP *&DownloadType=Drivers

Your pretty safe with video card driver they usually won't install unless the right video card is detected, make a restore point anyway.

 

Thanks, Rikky. Will be out until Monday, will look at these then.

 

Apparently I am missing portions of the .net framework, so had to manually load all the drivers. Started installing them Monday afternoon and finished this morning.

Did not see any blackouts Monday morning nor since??? :confused Guess I'll see if these have fixed the problem.

Thanks, Rikky for the assit. :wave

 

I doubt that is the cause. XP did not ship with any version of .NET. We currently run 3 computers with XP at our home. Two of the computers run 1.1 SP1 and the other runs 2.0 SP1 nothing higher.
This was verified by Aaron Stebner's verification tool.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2008/10/13/8999004.aspx

You can also look in the registry at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\.NET framework Setup\NHP
to see what is installed on the computer.

 

:eek Sorry should have clarified: had to load all the drivers individually as Dell's install software was needing the .NET

 

Update...

Still having this issue. My tech-support folks are at a loss. Having to send it in when they get a spare laptop they can send to me while they look at this one. That could be quite awhile.

We have swapped the docking station out, tried operating without the docking station and monitor... it does not blank when either the docking station or monitor are connected, but when both are, then it blanks.

Unfortunately, when connected to the docking station the video port on the laptop is not operational.

I did notice a few things about this issue:
1) when I am trying to view a drop-down menu (or start menu) after the blank I have to go through the steps again to get the drop-down.
2) If I am typing, I do not lose the characters that I have typed while the screens are blank.
3) I have six network drives that are assigned (mapped) drive letters when I logon. After a screen blank, I apparently lose these drive allocations as well as USB-flash-drives. One of my flash-drives will take the drive letter assignment of the main network drive, the other five seem unaffected. Only way I have found to restore this lost connection is to reboot, (unfortunately, I don't have access to their boot-up files to see how they mapped it).