Exterenal monitor problem

[Bob Newman]

I have an HP laptop and use an older external LCD monitor. The monitor
works fine... as long as the laptop lid is open but goes blank and says
"mode not supported" if I close the lid. I have the laptop settings (Vista)
to "do nothing " when I close the lid. Might I have another setting that is
off somewhere?

Thanks... Bob

 

[CBFalconer]

I have an HP laptop and use an older external LCD monitor. The
monitor works fine... as long as the laptop lid is open but goes
blank and says "mode not supported" if I close the lid. I have
the laptop settings (Vista) to "do nothing " when I close the lid.
Might I have another setting that is off somewhere?

It's just 'doing nothing'. As far as it is concerned the display
is not visible with the lid closed, so it is saving the energy to
run it, thus prolonging battery life.

 

[Bob Newman]

It's just 'doing nothing'. As far as it is concerned the display
is not visible with the lid closed, so it is saving the energy to
run it, thus prolonging battery life.

We are talking looking at the external monitor when the lid is closed.

Bob

 

[CBFalconer]

We are talking looking at the external monitor when the lid is closed.

Yup. But the laptop doesn't know it's external, so it shuts down
the display (and its drivers).

 

[Bob Newman]

Yup. But the laptop doesn't know it's external, so it shuts down
the display (and its drivers).

Did have another monitor hooked up like this and it was fine. To let you
know the circumstances so it may make more sense. I use my laptop as a
desktop replacement with an external monitor, keyboard etc. Two
considerations, first I want to save wear and tear on the screen (especially
since I am not looking at it), and the place I want to keep the laptop has
no room to open the lid anyway. As I said my old monitor did this fine.
I'm not sure what the problems is now.

Bob

 

[Bob Newman]

If you run the laptop for any length of time with the lid
closed, you risk damage from overheating. The screen
you are trying to protect could also be damaged from
overheating. If your keyboard gets warn running open,
it will be downright hot with the screen closed against
it.

Thanks for the new perspective, I never thought of it that way.

Bob

 

[Bob Newman]

It depends on the system load, how conservative the fan
throttling is in response to temp, and how the cooling
system is designed, plus some keyboards don't close anywhere
near air-tight.

If it's an issue, merely placing a wedge of some sort near
the front edge (not in contact with the screen portion
itself unless a very soft substance so as to not cause
scratches) to leave it open a slight bit may be sufficient.

If all else fails, turn down the backlight as much as
possible. That should help a bit by reducing power and tube
wear. The lighting system would be the weakest part, a
stationary laptop shouldn't wear out the rest before the
rest of the laptop is worn out.

Have you tried a newer driver? Sometimes those from an OEM
are a bit minimalistic and crippled. There are at least a
couple 'sites on the web that cater to modifying full ATI or
nVidia drivers to re-enable and validate their use on laptop
video. Intel I'm not so sure about, I've never had a cause
to hunt down such a driver for that case. nVidia drivers
can be found at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com , I don't
recall the URL for ATI's drivers but a Google search should
find it. Note also that it's not necessarily the newest
driver you'd want, sometimes features are temporarily
disabled due to bugs only to be re-enabled later. Ask in
their forum if a version you try doesn't have what you need.

I'm expecting the necessary setting to be disabling one of
the two outputs through the driver interface (Display
Properties). Having done that you save screeen wear but you
still may not be able to disable the lid switch if the
laptop manufacturer did not allow for it to stay on with the
lid closed.

I sent an email to the monitor mfg (Proview) and am awaiting a reply but I
really don't expect one seeing as it's an older monitor plus most of those
places don't answer under the best of circumstances.

Bob