Application windows reposition themselves when the monitors awaken.

[Rakk]

So I finally got round to getting myself a new spangly new 1440p monitor (I've been meaning to for the last year ...) and it's lovely, it's a Dell U2518D - yes, myself and my workmate who was leaving on Friday may have spent a good 30-45 minutes discussing monitors on Thursday morning - we were obviously getting a lot of work done .

Anyways, Windows is now being a pain (what a shock ...), if the monitors power off (after 15 mins like theyre supposed to) when I wake them up again, everything is now on my new monitor (the one set as the primary) rather than where it previously was - I normally have a number of thing open on the second monitor.

So I think this is 'Windows' bug from what I've read, but it only started affecting me now that I have two different resolution monitors (used to be 2 1080p monitors, now it's a 1440p and a 1080p monitor). Anyways I haven't really found anything useful to fix it, Microsofts answers have mostly been install the latest driver! or do a clean install - well I did a clean install a few weeks ago and the NVidia driver is uptodate - Windows updated it for me to the latest one when I did said clean install. Other suggestions were to turn off the power off functionality - just no, lets not do that! I think I saw someone mention a registry hack to fix it or 3rd party software, but I can't find those anymore and if possible I'd rather not use 3rd party software if possible.

Current windows version - Win 10 Pro - ver 1803 - clean installed about 3 weeks ago, GPU = GTX1070 (Zotac FE version of some kind) with either the latest NVidia driver or a pretty new one - can check this evening if needed. Monitors - the Dell U2518D (1440p - using a DP to miniDP cable that came with the monitor) and an Iiyama Prolite E2483HS1 (1080p - using the same DP to HDMI cable I've been using for the last year or so).

So anyone had and fixed this problem or have any cunning plans? Or am I missing something obvious (which is quite possible)?

 

[Oussebon]

Is there any scope to connect the primary monitor via HDMI instead?

 

[Oussebon]

I also came across someone saying:

Hello,


I think I may have a solution for this problem. It appears Windows 10 keeps a history of all the monitors it encounters during its life time. This includes the basic monitor support during the OS install. So, if you enable "Show hidden devices" in the Device Manager you will see all the monitors that were connected to your system.

Start the Control Panel as Administrator:

1. Start Control Panel --> Device Manager
2. Select View --> Show hidden devices
3. Expand Computer --> Monitors

When you expand the Monitors you will see your current monitor (highlighted) and all the disconnected monitors (greyed out). You may see monitors with "non-PNP" and "PNP" listed as well. I believe these are aliases to your current monitor (at a lower resolution) before Windows installed drivers for it.

I uninstalled ALL the greyed out monitors. Right-click on these monitors and select uninstall. Keep only the highlighted monitor you are currently using.

4. Uninstall all greyed out monitors (even non-PNP and PNP monitors)
5. Reboot your system.

After doing this my windows don't resize after my monitor goes to sleep. You can quickly test this by temporarily setting your monitor sleep time to 1 minute.
Settings --> System --> Power & Sleep --> Screen [1 minute]


Cheers,

Stephen
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...oved-and/2b9d5a18-45cc-4c50-b16e-fd95dbf27ff3

The topic also seems to have a variation on this (?) in the second page as a registry edit. I think there is also another registry hack initially intended for Win 7 mentioned in there.

A lot of people seem to be mentioning that when a device connected by DP loses power, presumably as with the monitor shut off due to power saving settings, Windows forgets its there - and presumably draws up the dual monitor setup again from scratch when it rediscovers both monitors, resulting in your apps all being on the primary (?).

 

[Rakk]

Is there any scope to connect the primary monitor via HDMI instead?

I can't connect it HDMI to HDMI because the GTX1070 only has one HDMI port and I need that for my Rift (also I don't know if I even have an HDMI cable that isn't being used by the Tivo), but I may move the DP to HDMI cable to the bigger monitor and see if my DVI cable reaches the 2nd monitor for testing purposes

 

[Rakk]

I also came across someone saying:

Ah-ha, you posted this whilst I was replying, I'll have a check of that - probably easier than fighting with cables

 

[Oussebon]

If you can temporarily connect them using HDMI and DVI, say, it might at least rule in/out the DP power down issue described above

 

[Oussebon]

Also, are you gaming on both of your monitors? If only 1, what if you use the integrated graphics off the mobo for the other?
I can't remember your spec and what outputs your mobo has off the top of my head

 

[Rakk]

4. Uninstall all greyed out monitors (even non-PNP and PNP monitors)

Wow, I have 7 listed ...

Ok, two currently in use, one will be my TV - which I only plug in when I want to watch to use it (otherwise i have a tendancy to lose the mouse cursor over there).

That still leaves an extra 4 .... whilst I could name one of them since my clean install, I have no idea about the rest (Edit: hope none of them were Rift related ...)

 

[Rakk]

If you can temporarily connect them using HDMI and DVI, say, it might at least rule in/out the DP power down issue described above

I'll see if I can locate an HDMI cable - not holding my breath though - going to test the first change whilst looking for cables (which was uninstalling the extra hidden devices)

Also, are you gaming on both of your monitors? If only 1, what if you use the integrated graphics off the mobo for the other?
I can't remember your spec and what outputs your mobo has off the top of my head

No, only gaming on one, the mobo is the ASUS® Z170 PRO GAMING, and looks to have DVI, HDMI, DP and VGA (hahahahaha)

 

[Oussebon]

Well, that seems to have you covered for video outputs then...

 

[Rakk]

4. Uninstall all greyed out monitors (even non-PNP and PNP monitors)

Well that didn't work, it did exactly the same thing

.
.
.

So some time later, after much farting about with cables (and believe me there was a lot of swearing, the new monitor has the ports nicely hidden away - makes it a right pain trying to plug new cables in without moving the monitor somewhere else entirely and lying it down flat - though I did manage):

1. original setup = DP to miniDP to to monitor 1 (Dell), DP to HDMI monitor 2 (Iiyama) - bad
2. HDMI to monitor 1, DP to HDMI monitor 2 - bad
3. HDMI to monitor 1, DVI to monitor 2 -- ooo, this works - but boo, I really need that HDMI for my Rift
4. DP to miniDP to monitor 1, DVI to monitor 2 --- oooo, I think that might do the job, seems to be fine (fingers crossed).

So I'll try it on number 4 and see how it goes, admittedly somewhere along the line I changed the monitor power off to 3 mins instead of 15 cos I got bored waiting

So thank you muchly Oussebon, and fingers crossed

I wonder if the same thing will happen when I plug my TV in (normally only do that when I want to watch a downloaded film or put the Rift stuff on there so bystanders can see what the person using the Rift can sorta see) as its on a DP convertor to HDMI + HDMI cable - won't play with that right now though

Edit: it great this isn't it, the newer graphics cards are all going DP mental, yet Windows doesn't seem to be able to deal with DP properly ....

 

[Oussebon]

I wonder if the same thing will happen when I plug my TV in

Hopefully not. Or rather if it does hopefully it won't cause the issue as you won't have moved any programs over to it as a 3rd monitor?

 

[ubuysa]

I'm just floating this out there, I'm not suggesting anything...... [glad that's clear ]

I had a minor niggle with my monitor and TV setup in that even though the monitor is the primary display, if the TV was on when I rebooted, the boot screen would always appear on the TV. On a completely unrelated matter I updated my BIOS (with PCS's support and permission of course) and since then the boot screen always appears on the monitor.

I realise that yours is apparently a Windows issue, but the port options you mention made me wonder whether a BIOS upgrade might help? I'm just thinking out loud here......

 

[Rakk]

I'm just floating this out there, I'm not suggesting anything...... [glad that's clear ]

I had a minor niggle with my monitor and TV setup in that even though the monitor is the primary display, if the TV was on when I rebooted, the boot screen would always appear on the TV. On a completely unrelated matter I updated my BIOS (with PCS's support and permission of course) and since then the boot screen always appears on the monitor.

I realise that yours is apparently a Windows issue, but the port options you mention made me wonder whether a BIOS upgrade might help? I'm just thinking out loud here......

Interestingly, since I connected the new monitor, the splash screen now always appears on my 2nd screen now (ie. the 1080p one - which admittedly used to be the number 1 monitor), but I don't really want to do a BIOS upgrade unless really necessary in case it all goes wrong (yes I can be a bit of a coward at times)

 

[ubuysa]

Interestingly, since I connected the new monitor, the splash screen now always appears on my 2nd screen now (ie. the 1080p one - which admittedly used to be the number 1 monitor), but I don't really want to do a BIOS upgrade unless really necessary in case it all goes wrong (yes I can be a bit of a coward at times)

I'm with you on the scary stuff and BIOS. I bought a UPS before I dared update mine but I've updated it a couple of times since (at PCS's suggestion) and with the safety net of a UPS it's much less scary.....

 

[Tony1044]

I'm with you on the scary stuff and BIOS. I bought a UPS before I dared update mine but I've updated it a couple of times since (at PCS's suggestion) and with the safety net of a UPS it's much less scary.....

Although these days, it's rare to find a BIOS that doesn't have a backup that can be recovered from in most cases.

But...yeah why make things difficult if they don't need to be? And popping a UPS on is a good call.

I once made the mistake of updating the BIOS on my Samsung laptop (about 10 years ago) in the first class lounge a Kings Cross station (Samsung had previously hidden the VTx options and I really needed to get a virtual demo running).

You can imagine my horror when their upgrade package rather loudly beeped the speaker for every 1% of checking, writing and verifying!

 

[ubuysa]

You can imagine my horror when their upgrade package rather loudly beeped the speaker for every 1% of checking, writing and verifying!

Aww, don't leave us in suspense...! What happened?

 

[Tony1044]

Aww, don't leave us in suspense...! What happened?

A first class lounge in England? Lots of dirty looks, a few shaken broadsheet newspapers and even a couple of "tuts". Oh yeah and one person even put their cup of tea down!

So...I think I really pee'd them off!!