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You are here: Home / Tech Questions & Answers / Q&A: Why won’t my monitor work with my laptop?

Q&A: Why won’t my monitor work with my laptop?

Posted on December 4, 2023

Question from Brenda M.:  I took my laptop to the shop because the screen stopped lighting up. They checked it out and told me the screen was bad.

They said it would cost almost $200 to replace the screen. I told them I couldn’t afford that so they told me I could still use the laptop by hooking up an external monitor.

I bought a monitor and hooked it up to the laptop with an HDMI cable, but I can’t get the monitor to show anything besides a blank screen.

How can I get the external monitor to work this laptop? 

It’s a Lenovo running Windows 11 and the monitor is a 24″ Dell.

Rick’s answer:  Hi, Brenda. Assuming that the video output circuitry inside the laptop is working as it should (surely the tech at the shop verified that it is), your new Dell monitor should work just fine with your laptop.

My guess is the laptop simply isn’t set up to cast the video image to an external monitor. Here’s how to set that up:

1 – Press the Windows+P key combination just once.

2 – Press the Down Arrow on the keyboard three times.

3 – Press the Enter key.

Assuming that your laptop’s HDMI port is still capable of outputting a usable video signal, you should now see the contents of the Windows Desktop on the external screen.

I hope this helps, Brenda. Good luck!

Update from Brenda:  It worked, Rick. Thank you so much!!

 







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