Windows 10: generate a display with the laptop lid closed

Question

Is there a way to make Windows 10 (Home edition with all current updates installed) generate a display on a laptop computer with the lid closed and the following settings?

Control Panel > Power Options > When I close the lid > Do nothing

In this thread concerning remotely controlled laptops with the lids closed, the techie answers that

To fix this, you would need a way to make the remote side generate a display with the lid closed. Even an external monitor or dummy plug would work.

Now an external monitor is out of the question in my case due to space considerations, but could someone please elaborate on what exactly is meant by a "dummy plug" in this context? Would that be a wireless display adapter or could something less expensive be used?

According to the link, this problem arose after a Windows update, but it's not clear whether this is solely a Windows 10 problem or not. Does anyone know? And, more importantly, does anybody out there have a software fix for this or any other suggestions?

Thanks.

Edit

So I ended up using an older laptop with an earlier Windows version (7.1) running on it instead, and it works flawlessly for the task at hand. Moreover, I can confirm this is in fact a relatively recent Windows 10 problem. I didn't try harrymc's suggestion below, but his is a relatively inexpensive solution that should work in theory, if you don't have a laptop not running on Windows 10 at your disposal. As far as I can tell, no readily available software fix currently exists for Windows 10 for this particular problem.

Solution 1

Solution for issues with screen being not refreshed properly when laptop's lid is closed, involves exchanging "ACPI lid" driver with something else:

VERY EASY SOLUTION:

1. open device manager
2. in "System devices" find "ACPI lid"
3. Open "ACPI lid" properties, and go to "Driver" tab.
4. Select "Update driver"
5. Choose "Browse my computer for driver software" and "Let me pick.." uncheck "Show compatible hardware"
6. And now...in "Manufacturer" select "(Standard system devices)" and model: "Volume manager" (yes, "Volume manager")
7. next, next, restart the system and it works!

ON WINDOWS 7 x64 ( Post Found: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1421975 )

Source

Please note that starting from some specific version of Windows 10, the Volume Manager is now filed under 'Microsoft' manufacturer name, and not inside '(Standard system devices)' where it used to be.

Please also note that you will lose the ability to define an action like hibernation/sleep on closing the lid (relevant drop-down list will just disappear from Power Options Control Panel applet).

This might look like a contradiction but I'd love to have both - ability to hibernate the laptop once office worker closes the lid and - at the same time - ability to remotely use the laptop once wakeup timer (or me, via Wake-On-Lan, where applicable) wakes it in the evening.

I suspect that each year with major Win'10 update you will probably have to repeat there steps as Windows will likely redetect ACPI Lid.

I guess that it is just a matter of changing the driver to anything else that won't BSOD, not necessarily Volume Manager, or maybe disabling the 'ACPI Lid' driver will suffice, but I've did just what the instruction said.

This solution is either underrepresented here on SuperUser, or completely absent, since - after reading several questions - I was about to buy not less than 12 HDMI dummy plugs (honestly, I needed just a half of that, but didn't tested then), which is not an ideal solution (something sticks out from the laptop, costs money and is not strictly necessary, as the issue is just a software thing). I've also considered some virtual monitor software, but found none.

This allowed me to 'fix' 5 out of 8 Win'10 laptops, that used to cease refreshing image on the screen with lid closed (three others were not affected, as well as two with Windows 7 and two with Windows 8.1).

Strange thing is that there's no rule as for my 8 laptops. Older machines upgraded to Win'10 (one with forced ATI Radeon x1270 driver, that Win'10 insists on uninstalling with major update each year, another one with ATI Radeon HD 3400 - each has got a VGA out AFAIR) don't exhibit such a behavior. Newish machines from Win'10 era generally do exhibit such a behavior (one HP 15-RA0XX, three Lenovo Ideapads 110-15IBR 80T7, one Acer Aspire A515-52G), but Lenovo v110-15ISK that is somewhere in-between those older Lenovos and HP, judging by BIOS date, is not affected whatsoever. It ain't also a matter of discrete vs. integrated GPU, as all of those Win'10 era machines - but the Acer - got integrated Intel GPUs.

On one of the older laptops (Gateway M-1631U, the one with forced ATI Radeon x1270 driver) I could even add second fake display, though with only 1024x768 resolution - and in spite of correctly updating the screen with lid closed, I don't need that anyway.) On another older laptop (Toshiba Satellite A300 - the one with ATI Radeon HD 3400) I couldn't, but on this one I don't have to as it also works fine with lid closed.

Solution 2

A video dummy plug is something that emulates a monitor connection, like this one:

If that does not help, please explain your problem in more detail.

Solution 3

I've just come across this problem after Win10 20H2 update (actually, I held the affected laptop back on v1909, as the same problem occurred on 2004 update and I couldn't be bothered to fix it, until other updates wouldn't install). The laptop concerned is a Lenovo L440 (more Ham Radio), and I resolved it slightly differently, by forcing Windows to use the Microsoft Basic Display Adaptor, rather that the Intel HD Graphics 4600 driver that windows wants to use (device manager is also happy then)

Comments

[bertieb]

Welcome to Super User! Is the problem that Windows 10 doesn't honour the Power Options setting? Also, you might want to edit your question to indicate what version of Windows 10 you are running :)

[Miqi180]

@ bertieb Nope, the problem is that the screen turns black if you remotely try to access the laptop with the lid down, even though the OS is still active and all processes are running, apparently because Windows doesn't generate any output to the screen.

[bertieb]

Is that specific to laptops, or a feature of how it is being accessed remotely? Do you mean the laptop screen, or the remote display is black?

[Miqi180]

@ bertieb The remote screen turns black whenever the lid on the remotely accessed laptop is closed, but all programs continue to run while the lid is closed as they're supposed to (i.e. Windows is not sleeping or hibernating). If I open the lid, the TeamViewer app shows the laptop display again immediately, but Windows doesn't generate a display while it's closed. The TeamViewer screen simply turns black.

[Mokubai]

In the past I've simply set a laptop not to sleep, and just connected to it with TeamViewer.

[Miqi180]

@ Mokubai According to the link I gave this used to be possible, but not after a certain Windows update, although I'm not sure which one since I've never faced this problem before.

[bertieb]

@bertieb Thanks, that's much clearer now- you could update OP to make that explicit, thought it might just be me that had trouble understanding :P

[Miqi180]

Well, you learn something new each day! This should work well in my case, but I would need to buy one first and test before I can accept the answer. Thanks so much for the help, I'll get back when I've tried this approach.

[Miqi180]

So I ended up using another laptop with an earlier Windows version on it instead, but your proposed solution should work in theory, so I gave you an upvote. (I can't accept your solution since I didn't try it).

[Jonathan Barton]

This is awesome! I have a laptop that just does dummy work around my LAN, I don't want the lid opened ever, but still need to VNC into it. This solution worked just as I needed. Thanks :)