dual monitors, virtual third monitor, maybe

bkelly · 09-02-2009, 05:03 PM

Windows XP, My computer was running with dual monitors and I reloaded XP. Now the monitors are operating very weirdly. Right click the screen and select Properties then Settings. When I select Identify, both monitors are identified as 1. Both 1 and 2 are shown in the window, but both identify as one.

When I open Word and do a find, the find window pops up and cannot be seen. It appears as though its on a third monitor. The main screen is on the left. The cursor will move to the right to the other screen, and will move to the left off the screen and dissapear.

I pulled the second monitor card and am back to one monitor, but my Power Desk (Explorer replacement) launches off the screen and I cannot see it at all.

Does anyone know what to do?

office politics · 09-03-2009, 10:20 PM

first, i'd try uninstalling all video cards and related software. pnp will prolly install after restarting. if not, reinstall the drivers. hopefully, it won't save the previous settings. you may want to try this in safe mode; some unseen drivers like to show in this mode. alsom there maybe a checkbox in device manager for show all drivers. Is this the same thing? i dunno.

didn't work? try configuring the video card software to use only one monitor. start the programs. then reconfigure for multi display.

what make and model video cards?

bkelly · 09-07-2009, 06:57 PM

The video card is an NVIDIA GeForce MX 4000
The card was removed and the computer booted, parameters set, then re-installed and rebooted. Problems remained.

After much fussing I removed the card and reinstalled Windows XP. After setting up the first monitor, resolution, etc, re-installed the card. After a few reboots, both monitors are working again. As I had to re-install Power Desk (and everything else), it no longer pops up off screen.

The main monitor is on the left with the extended monitor on the right. The cursor hits the edge on the top, bottom, and the right of the monitors (right side of the second monitor). But on the left it moves off screen. I have no idea of what to do about that. Sooner or later something will try to display in that unknown territory and I won't be able to find it.

Does anyone know of anything I can do about phantom screen off the left side of my monitor?

Mak213 · 09-07-2009, 08:02 PM

It has to be due to some software you installed. Cause as you said, it didn't happen until after you installed your software. It was working properly. So something you installed is doing it. Just have to figure out what.

patonb · 09-07-2009, 08:02 PM

You sure the resolutions set right for that monitor?

How are you setting up ther dual monitor setup?

dobsongeorge · 09-10-2009, 05:25 PM

I had a similar problem with running dual monitors. I encountered this problem strangely after installing SP3 on XP from a third party site. Explorer and desktop would show fine but with microsoft word it would almost jump off the 2 screens as if there was a third. Checked resolutions and all. Ended up having to syetm restore back to before SP3 to fix it and eventually auto updated to SP3

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