Why laptop has different display on screen & ext monitor?

10 Feb 2005 10:46 PM

Rich

This is weird.

My Power Squadron (boating group) uses a laptop and a projector to
teach classes with PowerPoint presentations. All was working well
until *suddenly* the laptop display and the projector are no longer
the same. I suspect that one of our users hit a key sequence by
mistake, or did something unauthorized, but I have no clue as to what
this may be.

Without PowerPoint running, the laptop displays the desktop and the
projector displays a light blue screen. It is NOT the same screen as
if there was no input to the projector.

If a PowerPoint presentation is run, the laptop shows the PP in a
outline or editing mode and the projector shows the actual full-screen
presentation.

The laptop is a Dell Latitude CPt S-series running W98SE that was
donated to us by a local college. I have no Dell CDs or instructions.
I did find some documentation on the HD, but it doesn't help with this
problem.

In the control panel, system, device manager, I have TWO external
monitors listed under Monitors. I think this is wrong. Both of them
are the projector. I have deleted both and let the system find new
hardware and it puts them BOTH back.

Every laptop/projector setup I have ever seen has the projector
mirroring the laptop display. This is what we want to return to.

TIA, Rich

12 Feb 2005 3:45 AM

Rich

Thanks for the response.

I found that the two monitor entries were for the monitor output and
the S-video output. I had forgotten about the S-video.

I never found the real cause for the problem, but I did discover that
the video driver had a newer update available from Dell. After
installing that update, I could now perform the actions to synchronize
the screen and the monitor output as described by the instructions and
Dell KB articles. I now have the problem solved.

Thanks again.