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Unable to interact with the content on the secondary monitor

Anonymous
2019-02-15T19:00:27+00:00

I have three monitors plugged into a evga GTX 1060 ACX 2.0, the system is running latest Windows 10 pro.

Every night I put the computer to sleep. Occasionally, and more frequently the past week, I wake the computer in the morning to find very strange behavior:

  • Whatever monitor is my main display works perfectly
  • Secondary monitors turn on and show the last content they had (any open browsers, programs, etc)
  • I can move my mouse into the secondary screens and see it moving around just fine
  • When I click or do any kind of interaction on those screen, the visuals do not update (again, mouse around moving is fine)
    • Click a window, the window focus never shows; scroll or press a button on a website, doesn't show any changes; click the Windows button, menu doesn't open
  • However, I can still interact with the screens despite not being able to see what I'm changing
    • Drag a window off the screen and it magically appears on the main display; press the 1-Click buy on an Amazon item, receive it 2-5 business days later
  • Changing the main display changes the screen I can interact with
  • Mucking with the resolution of the secondary monitors does not fix the issue but it does update their visuals
  • Display driver details:
    • Date: 2018-11-12
    • Version: 25.21.14.1694
  • I am in the process of downloading NVidia 2019 drivers to see if that helps

The only fix I've found so far (with my limited experience debugging display issues) is restarting the computer. Help!

***Modified title from: Secondary display content is frozen, can still see mouse and "interact" with frozen windows***

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-02-16T10:24:21+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

    Please reply to the following questions:

    • Are you facing this issue only after sleep mode?
    • Are you aware of any changes on the computer prior to this issue?

    It could be that when you are putting the computer into sleep, after a time interval the computer might be going to Hibernate mode and that is why you are facing this issue. We can try disabling Hibernate and check if the issue persists. Please follow the steps mentioned below to check if that helps:

    1. Type Command Prompt in the search bar on the taskbar.
    2. Right click on the Command Prompt icon and select Run as administrator.
    3. Now, type the command and press Enter on the keyboard: powercfg –h off

    I suggest you to try creating a new power plan on the computer and check if that helps or makes any difference. Please follow the steps mentioned below to change the power plan:

    1. Press and hold Windows key + R, to open Run box.
    2. Type control and click on OK.
    3. Now, click on Power options.
    4. Click on Create a power plan.
    5. Click on Balanced (recommended) and click on Next.
    6. Follow the on screen instructions to create a new power plan.

    Hope it helps.

    Please reply with the status of the issue, we will be glad to help you further.

    Nikhar Khare

    Microsoft Community - Moderator

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2019-06-25T17:02:12+00:00

    Edit: I just checked my power settings and noticed that "Allow Hybrid Sleep" was set to "On". I have turned it Off. I will report in 1 week if the issue has not resurfaced (or sooner if it does).

    It has been a while and I have not seen the same issue resurface. It looks like turning off Hybrid Sleep is a workaround until the actual cause is found and fixed.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-31T13:54:34+00:00

    I am facing the same issue. Put the computer to sleep at night, come back to start working in the morning, and the second monitor is not refreshing the content.

    Here is a wild theory: perhaps this is a memory problem. It seems like the pixels are being dumped back into the GPU display buffer and not being refreshed. I don't know enough about graphics cards to say anything more than that. One strike against this theory would be that somehow the mouse still shows up just fine.

    What programs are y'all running when sleeping? I've got Chrome, Excel, Signal Desktop, Word, MATLAB running.

    My GPU is an NVIDIA Quadro K620 running the 22.21.13.8601 drivers.

    Windows 10 Pro Build 17763

    Lenovo P300

    Edit: I just checked my power settings and noticed that "Allow Hybrid Sleep" was set to "On". I have turned it Off. I will report in 1 week if the issue has not resurfaced (or sooner if it does).

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2019-04-11T06:48:08+00:00

    I have had this exact problem the last few weeks as well on a GTX 1070TI and three monitors.

    The main monitor works, but the other two are frozen. If I change which is the main monitor in settings that monitor comes alive but the previous main monitor freezes.

    This is an insidious problem because Windows is actually working fine underneath so you can potentially click some buttons that you should not click (like the mentioned Amazon 1-buy) and do something unaware.

    For me the problem also occurs occasionally after using Sleep.

    It was really hard to find this page when using Google/Bing so there might be a lot of others with this problem unreported. I did find this old thread from 2015 with what seems to be the same trouble: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-other\_settings/dual-screen-setup-second-screen-freezing-up/4a74ae2d-8c2e-400e-bdee-0a5b208b03df

    Except the workaround there does not work as per above (the currently main screen works but stops working when not the main screen anymore).

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2019-02-18T19:37:45+00:00

    Thank you for the prompt reply and suggestions.

    I've updated the NVidia driver as mentioned above and haven't yet seen the issue recur, though it's only been 2 days. Hopefully this will solve the issue.

    I've also run the powercfg command as recommended, but doing a before and after comparison of /q output from the tool doesn't show a difference in the settings - HYBRIDSLEEP it is still set at 0x00000001 (though I'm not sure if that's what the intended change was).

    I haven't yet tried the new power plan but if I encounter the problem again that will be my next step.

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