Why isn't my primary monitor being recognized?

[Windows Central Question]

primary monitor not recognized

In Windows 7, I was using extended display:

primary=notebook screen
secondary=external monitor

Ater installing Windows 10, the primary screen is not detected by the system; only the external monitor works.

In "System > Display" it says "didn't detect another display".

The primary screen works only a few seconds while starting the pc, than it goes black and dead right before Windows logon screen.

Already updated/installed/resinstalled/disabled/enabled drivers, but nothing worked.

 

[rhapdog]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

I had a very similar issue, except it would not detect the external monitor, which was my primary. Secondary was actually the laptop's monitor.

I noticed in the Device Manager it stated the Display was a "generic VGA device." I was also having issues with lag on screen updates, and screen tearing.

I installed the graphics drivers that came with the laptop (that I had on a separate CD, because I thought to copy those before upgrading), and all my problems went away. Apparently, the drivers were already compatible with Windows 10. This may or may not fix your issue, depending on the compatibility of your particular graphic driver.

Do a search if you need to and locate valid drivers for what you know your system needs. Install them and see if that clears it up. Once installed, the system should finally recognize your graphic hardware, and future updates should be better.

 

[igornaf]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

rhapdog, thanks. I already installed original drivers from my Dell CD, didn't work. Than I installed the latest Intel drivers, didn't work also.
I've been on this journey for more than 10 hours today.

 

[igornaf]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

...

 

[rhapdog]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

Wow! Makes it kind of useless as a notebook computer. Yikes!

What is the actual model of the Dell you have?

 

[igornaf]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

Vostro 3550.

 

[igornaf]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

SOLVED!
BIOS was the problem. Mine was version A09, after upgrading to A12 (Dell official) the system detected the notebook screen.

 

[rhapdog]

Re: primary monitor not recognized

SOLVED!
BIOS was the problem. Mine was version A09, after upgrading to A12 (Dell official) the system detected the notebook screen.

Great to hear. I'm still waiting for Lenovo to update the BIOS on my model. They've provided chipset, LAN, WLAN, Bluetooth, Card Reader, Camera, Video, and touchpad drivers, but no BIOS update yet. Those were just released yesterday. Perhaps the BIOS will be soon.