Windows 10 detects too many monitors

Question

I have a Dell Precision laptop running the latest version of Windows 10. I'm experiencing problems with my display settings where it sometimes won't recognize new displays connected via HDMI. When my laptop is not connected to any external displays and I go to Display settings, there are four extra displays shown, all grayed out and disabled.

I don't know what they are or why they are there. Is there any way to remove these? Or is there a way to reset all display configurations?

Solution 1

Try solution mentioned on https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/windows-10-multiple-non-existent-screens/541f1815-de00-47a2-b638-5c0a6fdb01a4 that helped me.

It seems to be an issue in the Intel HD Graphics driver. Installing previous version, more specifically 15.40.4.64.4256 (https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25150/Intel-Iris-Iris-Pro-and-HD-Graphics-Production-Driver-for-Windows-10-64-bit) solves it for me, until someone will come up with better idea.

Solution 2

This is how I solved it on my Windows 10:

On the desktop, Right click > Display Settings > Under "Select and rearrange displays" click "identify" - Take note of the numbers that appear on your monitors. Those are you, valid monitors.

Select one of the "invalid" or "ghost" monitors. Scroll down and click the multiple display drop down. Select "Disconnect this display" and accept the change when prompted. Then click "Remove this display" from the same drop down.

Repeat this for each monitor you wish to remove, the display should go away.

Comments

[doraemon]

Today I encountered this same problem and found this post. I solved the problem using a different method other than the selected answer to roll drive back since now it is already 2020 and the driver is much updated from the mentioned version. Instead I disabled all the four Generic Non-PnP monitors in Device Manager and restarted the system. Then they are all gone in the display settings. Disable instead of Uninstall is essential. I also tried to Uninstall them, but after a restart, they are reinstalled automatically.

[leonbloy]

@Liu Sha same here. You should post that as an answer.

[doraemon]

@leonbloy glad to know that this method also solved your problem. I do not have enough reputation on superuser site, so I cannot answer the question. Could you please post it as an answer?

[doraemon]

To add more information, I strong feel that the extra monitors are caused by enabling either Hyper-V or Windows Sandbox. Turn those features off may solve the problem

[Daniel]

This solved it. Although it seems like a backwards solution to install an older driver. I tried reinstalling the latest driver after installing the older driver, only for the problem to reappear. Hopefully a future driver update will get it right again.

[Yogurtu]

2018 here... I got this problem as well :/

[hysterical]

@Yogurtu: Did you try reverting Intel GPU driver or other drivers for other GPUs you might have?

[Yogurtu]

In my case, I have a nvidia gtx 560, it seems to fail if I install latest nvidia drivers, but if I remove and reinstall with older version, it works fine, so basically the solution when you have an old video card, is to use old drivers.

[Farrukh Waheed]

doesn't work. It never gives any prompt to accept the change

[Максим Корчагин]

In 2020, updating drivers seems to work. After installing version 20.19.15.5070 the problem went away.

[MewX]

didn't work for me. It already selected "Disconnect this display".

[Dimitry K]

This worked for me. The key is that those monitors will not disappear from the Display settings diagram, but they will become grey (number will grey out) and when number is grey that also means that this display is "not used" by windows. Try moving a window of some app with "Win+Right". First window will move to right edge of current screen, but if you press key again it will move it to the next screen. The normal behaviour (eg. when you have just 1 screen) is for window as it is moved to "wrap around" and appear on the left edge of same screen. This way you can check if for ghost screens