Monitor settings randomly change

Whaauw, I think (again) I found a solution. Or should I say I found what has been causing my external display issue since Febr 8th 2024.

First of all my platform is an HP Envy X360 2-in1 Laptop 15-ey0xxx

Productnumer 6F814EA#ABH, configured with 16GB of RAM
Installed OS Windows 11 version 23H2 (Build 22631.3593)

Have installed all available patches through Windows Update, including all optional patches!

My external display is connected through HDMI:

Philips 346E2C (34 inch Wide curved LCD MONITOR)

Internal display of laptop is NOT used/configured (only use external display: display 2).

My challenges: Since febr 8th 2024 my external display is (more or less) randomly setting the display into 'racing mode'. This mode can be changed manually through some knobs on the display (8 different settings) or thgouth the appplication SmartControl (which I downloaded from the Philips website). There was a specific situation in which the challenge reoccured again and again. After starting WSL (Ubuntu) the display always switched back into racing mode! So frustrating. And more over it changed back at random intervals.

Many people reported more or less the same challenge (switching back to racing mode). However no where a solution so far. I got more and more frustrated by this cause it takes me lots of time to readjust the display day after day since Febru 8th 2024.

First I discovered that almost every time that the display got reset an action was reported in the directory: %APPDATA\Local\HP\HP Display Handler\ where a logfile got stored for every day since the challenge started: ie. HP Display Handler.log.20240517.active

Then I started to use procmon from the Sysinternal Suite! And I got to learn the a process accessed the logfile in the directory HP Display Handler. The process: C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034\ProcInfo.exe

OK, Next step now is to rename the directory where the ProcInfo.exe file is stored to a different name. For now: C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\OLD___hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034\ProcInfo.exe

REBOOTED THE SYSTEM AND SO FAR SO GOOD!!!!

I checked the Windows Update History log
ON February 8th 2024 installed: HP Inc. - SoftwareComponent 1.64.3526.0
Guess that this patch has been causing me headaches!!!

OH NO
Not again! On May 22nd installed HP Inc. - SoftwareComponent - 1.66.3762.0 and the problem is back. Directory C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034 is reinstalled. Changed name of directory again!!! Reboot and problem disappeared

It seems that every time when my Philips (external) monitor 346E2C switches back to RACING mode a particular file is modified. The file is located in the directory AppData\Local\HP\HP Display Handler

For each day there is a new file with the name which contains the date. For today it is: HP Display Handler.log.20240517.active with its complete path:

AppData\Local\HP\HP Display Handler\HP Display Handler.log.20240517.active

Through procmon I get the impression that the program responsible is:
Description: InsightsProcessInfo

Company: HP Inc.

Name: ProcInfo.exe

Version: 1.0.4.2

Path: C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034\ProcInfo.exe

Command Line: C:\ProgramData\HP\Telemetry\collectors\hp-telemetry-peripheral-collector_ver_3.0.4737034\ProcInfo.exe --hpdisplay C:\windows\TEMP\ProcInfo.xml

Anybody any clue what is going on???

Here are the full details of this same issue other users are experiencing:

I have three Philips 28 4K monitors with the SmartImage feature, and after a Windows update sometime between mid-March 2024 and April 2024, the three monitors started changing settings on their own. All three monitors change SmartImage mode from SmartUniformity to Gamer1 which is NOT legible for performing work (Excel and Word documents). When the issue happens the settings change three times for each monitor in this sequence, monitor #1, #2, #3, #1, #2, #3, #1, #2, #3. After the monitors settle down, I have to go behind my desk to reach the control button to reset each monitor. This happens multiple times per hour.

I uninstalled all "uninstallable" updates that were made in 2024, which included KB5036620 and a security update, as these were the only two updates in 2024. The issue recurred immediately after reboot. All devices are updated to the latest drivers. I also note that I purchased this PC and the three Philips monitors approximately 6 months ago and have been using this setup for the past ~6 months, error-free, with NO random monitor changes until the issue started in March/April 2024.

• OMEN HP 45L Gaming Desktop
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit Version: 22631.3447
• 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K
• Intel(R) UHD Graphics 770
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

This issue wastes approximately 10 minutes of my time for every hour of work. I am approaching the point where I am seriously considering purchasing three new monitors to avoid wasted productivity (which translates to lost revenue), but do not want to spend another $1500+. I don't know what to do. Please help.

The issue recurs 100% of the time when the monitors wake up from sleep and also randomly recurs while actively using the PC (with all monitors already awake). The behavior of the three monitors always changing settings in sequence from #1 to #2 to #3 suggests that Windows (or something in Windows) is iterating through the monitors, forcing the Philips SmartImage setting to change to Gamer1.

Please help as this Windows issue is severely impacting my ability to work.

Well, based on the flurry of posts and descriptions it appears a MS update around March/April 2024 has caused the problem to start (or return in your case). I'm sure MS has shared component updates that are common to Windows 10 and 11, so if the problem surfaces in one OS, it may very likely appear in the other as well. Too many posts are relating this back to a March/April MS OS update for that to be a coincidence. And the users posting about this issue have a mix of video card brands, reducing the likelihood of this being a third-party video card driver issue.

For me personally, I purchased this HP OMEN desktop and 3 Philips monitors ~6 or 7 months ago. Everything worked error-free until 3-6 weeks ago, when this monitor issue suddenly came out of nowhere after an OS update.

My smart image changes between Gamer2 and Off

It surely started after an Update on march 05

2024-02 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5034848)

I also had done bios update on March 05

I tried Philips smart control software to change to SmartImage OFF - but monitor still switches

apart from these could you check if you have following issues that started nearby

1.Lagging mouse or scroll up down

2.When laptop is disconnected from monitor and you open any photos-> fullscreen(f11 or button)-> double click to zoom -> black window appears (this happens only in laptop disconenct happens across youtube, prime videos fullscreen)

Looking at @Vick2018 comment , new update may help but 2 more updates already installed that did not solve the issue (april 11 2024)

2024-04 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5036893)