Laptop screen not working but external monitor does. Help!

[Papasmurf89]

Hi there,

So, just like the title says, my laptop screen isn't working but the external monitor that it's hooked up to does. I tried to Detect my laptop monitor under my Screen Resolution settings and had no luck. It is detecting my external monitor though. Anyone know what might be going on?

I'm running an Windows 8.1 on a Sager NP8651. I have previously used this laptop with an external monitor and both screens had been fine. It was working last night (no external monitor hooked up) but when I brought it to work today...this.

Any idea what might be going on?

Edit: Also, if I unplug the external monitor at the moment I don't get anything. My laptop screen still doesn't work and both displays are black.

Update: Weird. Tried shutting down and booting my laptop back up. I get the boot screen for the manufacturer (Sager) on my laptop display but nothing after that. No Windows boot screen immediately following the Sager logo or anything else. It goes from the Sager logo, to black, and then I got the login screen on the external monitor.

Update 2: Bizarre. Unplugged the external monitor and rebooted. The laptop display worked fine. Logged in and then plugged in the external monitor and now I'm good to go. Anyone know what might have caused this and things I can do in the future to prevent this? Thanks.

 

[johnb35]

You don't have the monitor settings set correctly. You need to set laptop screen as main monitor and external monitor as second.

 

[Papasmurf89]

I believe that I do. Under my Screen Resolution settings, my laptop screen is labeled #1 and the external monitor is #2. Or are you talking about something else? The weird thing was was that when my laptop display wasn't working, it didn't even show up under those settings. All I saw was the external monitor.

 

[johnb35]

Then you may have a loose video cable going to the screen.

 

[Papasmurf89]

If it happens again is my best choice to disassemble the laptop and try to secure that connection?

 

[Krieger]

Sounds like a setting issue to me. You'll probably just have to reconfigure display back to the laptop screen & away from the output display (HDMI VGA etc.) I had a similar issue with my old HP after it was hooked up to my TV for a while. Go to control panel or what ever the equivalent of it is now then go to display settings & there should be options for that there. Updates can sometimes throw those settings out of whack especially in Windows 10. That could have been what caused the issue.