device manager lists 7 monitors, 2 default and 5 plug and play

help me someone my senior computer, hal was working fine yesterday but tonight when i turned him on he did the little bleep and then started sounding like a woodpecker,and he chirped and did everything but gargle. i turned him and turned him back on and he started in safe mode. he's clean no virus,no spyware or adware, i do his antis daily so i checked device manager right down the line ...... i have 7 monitors listed like i said 2 defaults and five plug and plays. so i went to system information and according to it i have no display, no input, no modem, no nothing.

i had a new video card installed in march and surely thats not it,is it. the monitor i had connected to him is working fine with another computer, and device manager lists only one monitor. y'll please,i have no idea as to whats happening, can you help?

 

Hi Jan, our friend hal playing up?

Just to start, you won't see any devices listed in System Information when in Safe Mode. Only base drivers are loaded in Safe Mode.

When you look in Device Manager when you are in Safe Mode, it will show you all the old drivers that have been run for that hardware. Windows uses "Default Monitor" when it cannot find any suitable drivers. It may be trying to run the monitor as "Plug and Play ", but because there are 5 sets listed for PnP, I might think that these are the wrong type for your monitor and it needs special drivers (although some of those 5 may be from previous monitors).
Highlight and "Remove" all those monitors. Reboot and hopefully it will try to start in normal Windows. It will run the "Add New Hardware" wizard and ask you for drivers. If you have a CD that came with the monitor, get the wizard to look on that CD for the drivers. If it keeps saying it cannot find the drivers, click Cancel.
When you get to normal Windows run the CD that came with the monitor and do the driver installation. If you cannot find the CD, find out the model number of the monitor (the User Guide should help). You can post back here and tell us the make and model or search for drivers on the internet using a Google search.

I am supposing that the problem is the monitor. You say it made noises. It may be a problem with the harddrive. Run Scandisk. Set it to "Thorough" and check "Automatically fix errors ".

Let us know how you go with those and if you still get thrown to Safe Mode.

Matt

 

matt thanks loads for answering so fast,you guys are good.

the monitors works okay on another computer. and i dont have the cd for monitor, its a compaq (mv540) that he has used forever and i have some cds for the compaq computer but dont know using them on hal(he's a nu-trend) so i guess we could say that i dont have the cd for the monitor?

im getting totally confused, i will put hal back on and see what happens when i remove six of those monitors. and do a scan disk on him i usually do clean disk,scan disk (always thorough)and defrag every week. try to keep him clean and running,like i said he's my senior computer.

hals hooked back up with monitor no woodpeckers this time but came up in safe mode, scan disk has restarted three times,four times ...dont understand this at all.. now running in standard hoping to clear up whatever is making it restart in thorough. standard is finished no errors. now we try thorough again

it must be about 12 or 13 hours ahead of us (eastern time 12:43am) i am glad you on cause i have no idea of whats going on, im going to try to get scandisk done. it keeps restarting,around 31k im going to try to defrag it and see if i can get it to do something
i ll keep in touch postscript; finally got him scandisked,finished around 5am and yeah i got the box saying that it had restarted 10 times and did i want to keep seeing that box. uh huh! restarted and got out of safe mode. and got a invalid page fault nvsvc,then got this little thingie saying my display was not right! As i said earlier,i had my video card replaced by one of the computer places here and i thought they were supposed to set it up,do whatever,right? so i have no idea about what to do with it.i have it on 800x600 true color 32 bit and clone was checked which i dont understand at all. the device manager showed 2 monitors and i kept the compaqmv540 and removed the default. so im going restart him now and what happens. ok well windows found new hardware, the default monitor and its back on the device manager. so he has two monitors,i guess i leave them. dont know what else to do. he rather strange sometimes. thats five less than he used to have..so whatever. thanks for the help i hope you can understand this but im tired thanks again. jan

 

Jan, I am about to leave for work.

By "Clone" it seems the Display is set for running "dual" monitors. Go to Display in Control Panel. Go to the Settings tab. Click on the picture of the monitor #2 or highlight #2 in the drop-down box ( "Display: ") under the pictures. Uncheck "Extend my desktop onto this monitor ".

Let us know if there is any improvement.

Matt

 

mattman, i hate this hal starts fine but every time he starts a default monitor is added. it has the correct monitor on there the compaq mv540 and i can not uncheck the extend my windows desktop onto this monitor because it is grayed out. and under the default monitor it is not checked. so he has two monitors, how do i get out of duel monitors i have never,never used two monitors. and i have no idea as to why the people who put in my video card fixed it like that.

i get no help from help there is nothing about a single monitor in help on windows, is it against the law?

so how do i get this dual monitors off,away,gone i am tired of it. and what is this default monitor -where does it come in? i have never had duel monitors on hal. now the way it is, is that device manager lists the compaq and the default, if i remove the default monitor next time i start the computer it will find it and it will be right back on the device manager. like whoopy! i want out of the duel monitor! how do i do that?

 

Jan, "whoopy" is one of my favourite things too!

Don't get stressed out. It sounds very much like it is installing a monitor on the second graphics head (this is what you use to connect a second/dual monitor or a TV, etc).

As an explanation, the second graphics "head" is working, but cannot find a monitor to install, that is why it is installing a default monitor.

As I said:

What has happened is that you need to "select" or highlight the second monitor. You need to tell Windows which monitor (it thinks there are two) to disable.

I will do it as steps, but you are not far off.

Go to Control Panel.
Open Display.
Click on the Settings tab.

At the top you will see two pictures of "monitors ". One has a number 1 the other has a number 2. Click on the "picture" of monitor #2. This will "select" (highlight) the second monitor. When you select/highlight the second monitor, the "Extend the desktop onto this monitor" checkbox will become enabled and you can uncheck it.

OR

The other way to select the second monitor is to go to the "drop down" box where it says: "Display: "
Click on the drop-down (the down pointing triangle).
You will see a listing of the two displays, XXXXXXXX monitor on YYYYYYYY graphics card. Click on number 2 to select it. The "Extend the desktop onto this monitor" should then be able to be unchecked (become selectable).

Don't worry that this is a little hard to do. It had me stumped at first too.

I don't think it was a BIG oversight by the graphics card installer. Unless you reboot several times after installing the graphics card, you may not notice it.

Matt

 

matt thanks i did what you said clicked on monitor 2 enabled it and then unchecked the box.

question device manager is still listing the default monitor,does it need to be listed? im going to remove it and see if it adds it back. it did. so leave it alone?

 

Yes, it needs to install some type of monitor on the second graphics head. Hopefully, now the secondary display is disabled, it won't cause you any more problems.

Matt