Why laptop has different display on screen & ext monitor?

[Rich]

This is weird.

My Power Squadron (boating group) uses a laptop and a projector to
teach classes with PowerPoint presentations. All was working well
until *suddenly* the laptop display and the projector are no longer
the same. I suspect that one of our users hit a key sequence by
mistake, or did something unauthorized, but I have no clue as to what
this may be.

Without PowerPoint running, the laptop displays the desktop and the
projector displays a light blue screen. It is NOT the same screen as
if there was no input to the projector.

If a PowerPoint presentation is run, the laptop shows the PP in a
outline or editing mode and the projector shows the actual full-screen
presentation.

The laptop is a Dell Latitude CPt S-series running W98SE that was
donated to us by a local college. I have no Dell CDs or instructions.
I did find some documentation on the HD, but it doesn't help with this
problem.

In the control panel, system, device manager, I have TWO external
monitors listed under Monitors. I think this is wrong. Both of them
are the projector. I have deleted both and let the system find new
hardware and it puts them BOTH back.

Every laptop/projector setup I have ever seen has the projector
mirroring the laptop display. This is what we want to return to.

TIA, Rich

 

[Wayne Morgan]

There is probably a quick key combination for the laptop to enable various
video outputs, LCD, VGA, TV, or a mix of these. The light blue screen you
mention sounds as if Windows has been told to extend the desktop to the
second display. If this is done, you essentially wind up with a display
where the mouse will move from one to the other if you try to move the mouse
off of the side of the display. If Windows hasn't been told to extend the
desktop, then the second display is a copy of the first. PowerPoint has a
multi-monitor feature that will take advantage of two displays by giving a
control panel to run the slide show on the main display and will go full
screen (presentation mode) on the second display.

 

[Rich]

Thanks for the response.

I found that the two monitor entries were for the monitor output and
the S-video output. I had forgotten about the S-video.

I never found the real cause for the problem, but I did discover that
the video driver had a newer update available from Dell. After
installing that update, I could now perform the actions to synchronize
the screen and the monitor output as described by the instructions and
Dell KB articles. I now have the problem solved.

Thanks again.