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Surface Pro 9 won't hold settings for external monitor

I just upgraded from an older Surface to a Surface Pro 9, and I'm having trouble getting the Pro 9 to play nicely with my (very old but still functional) external monitor, which is set to extend the display. The problem is keeping the right resolution on the external monitor. After playing around with a bunch of settings, I think what's happening is that when the Surface sleeps, it loses the appropriate setting for the monitor.

Here's what the display settings look like when I first start up the Surface, with the monitor at the correct resolution (1440x900):

If I walk away from the computer for a while so that it sleeps, the settings have reverted to this, and I'm unable to get the correct resolution for the monitor:

Also, when the computer wakes from sleep, all the windows have reverted to the Surface display, even though I've ticked the box to "remember window locations based on monitor connection." On my older Surface, everything used to stay right where I left it.

The monitor is a Dell P2714H and I've hooked it up using the VGA port on the Surface USB-C Travel Hub. Dell has not issued a Windows 11 driver for the monitor (did I mention it's very old, but still functional), so I tried installing the Windows 10 version. (My older Surface started out with Windows 10 and I'm guessing the old driver came along for the ride when I upgraded it to Win 11, so I took a chance that I could make the old driver work with a native Win 11 installation.) Device manager shows a different Dell driver for the second monitor (SE 198WFP, which is actually a Windows Vista driver!) when everything is working well, but when I have problems with the resolution it shows only a Generic PnP driver. I am very confused.

I think I've (temporarily?) solved the problem by changing the power settings so that the Surface won't sleep while it's plugged in. (Although now my screensaver has stopped working, so I have to go figure that out...) This doesn't seem like a real fix, though. Shouldn't the monitor settings/driver hold when the computer is asleep? Is this an annoyance, or a symptom of a larger bug in the Surface?

UPDATE: although I'd set the computer to never sleep, I had it set for the screen to turn off after 15 minutes. When I turned it back on, it reverted to the incorrect resolution, with all windows on the main display (Surface) and nothing on the external monitor. I've now set the power management to not turn off the screen while plugged in, so we'll see what happens...

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.

[=sfc=]

Hi SFCohen,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. I understand that you are having trouble with your Surface Pro 9 and external monitor Dell P2714H.

May I know which Surface Pro 9 configuration are you using? Intel or 5G?

Based on the information you provided, it seems that the issue is related to the display driver and its compatibility with the old monitor. Here are some troubleshooting steps that you can try:

1. Update the display driver

Go to Device Manager, expand Display adapters, right-click on the display adapter, and select "Update driver." Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software" and let Windows search for the latest driver. If there is an update available, install it and restart your Surface Pro 9.

2. Uninstall Generic PnP driver

Go to Device Manager when the issue occurs, right-click on the Generic PnP driver then select "Uninstall device". After uninstalling, click on Action then select "Scan for hardware changes"

Checking also on the specifications of the monitor (Dell P2714H User‘s Guide), it shows that the monitor also has a DisplayPort input, can we try to connect the monitor using the DisplayPort directly to the USB-C port of the device? You may need a DisplayPort to USB-C adapter for this.

Let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Marrion

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Hi, Marrion - thanks for the quick response! See more info below...

May I know which Surface Pro 9 configuration are you using? Intel or 5G?

The Pro 9 is the Intel version.

1. Update the display driver

Go to Device Manager, expand Display adapters, right-click on the display adapter, and select "Update driver." Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software" and let Windows search for the latest driver. If there is an update available, install it and restart your Surface Pro 9.

I tried this and it says I have the best driver for the Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics display adapter. I also checked via Windows Update and it did not find anything.

2. Uninstall Generic PnP driver

Go to Device Manager when the issue occurs, right-click on the Generic PnP driver then select "Uninstall device". After uninstalling, click on Action then select "Scan for hardware changes"

At the moment it's not showing me the Generic PnP driver. The last time it reverted to that I think I uninstalled it and tried forcing the Dell driver to install, but that doesn't work unless I restart the computer.

Checking also on the specifications of the monitor (Dell P2714H User‘s Guide), it shows that the monitor also has a DisplayPort input, can we try to connect the monitor using the DisplayPort directly to the USB-C port of the device? You may need a DisplayPort to USB-C adapter for this.

Ooops - after looking at that user's guide, I realized that's not the right model number for the monitor; it actually is the Dell SE198WFP, so the driver matches the monitor. The tech specs for the correct monitor show that it also has a DVI port. It looks like I can get either a DVI to USB-C cable or a DVI to HDMI cable. Am I correct that DVI will give me better output quality than VGA? As between USB or HDMI at the other end, which connection would work better through the Travel Hub? (And is price indicative of cable quality?)

I wonder whether switching from analog to digital signal from the external monitor will fix the other problem. (Right now I've got it working by preventing the screen from turning off and the Surface from sleeping, but that's probably not optimal.) Any advice you can give on the VGA vs. DVI question would be lovely.

[=sfc=]

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Hi SFCohen,

Thank you for the response and clarification.


This seems to be a compatibility concern already between the monitor and Windows 11. Checked also on the site from Dell (Support for Dell SE198WFP | Drivers & Downloads | Dell US) and yes, the monitor does not have an available driver for Windows 11. However, just to make sure though, do you have access to another device running also on Windows 11 where we could test the monitor with and see if it would show the same behavior?

Regarding with other port of the monitor, I'm not sure with DVI if it would provide higher resolution that what we are having right now in connecting the monitor through HDMI since as stated under Solution 6 in Troubleshoot connecting Surface to an external display - Microsoft Support, if the monitor does not support DisplayPort or USB-C, HDMI is what we recommend using.

Lastly, let us try running the driver in compatibility mode with Windows Vista. Uninstall the driver of the monitor first then go to Support for Dell SE198WFP | Drivers & Downloads | Dell US and download the driver for Windows Vista. Once downloaded, open the File Explorer and navigate to the exe file downloaded. Right-click on it and select Properties. Go to Compatibility tab then tick the box next to "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select Windows Vista. Click Apply > OK. Double-click the file to run and install it on compatibility mode. See if issue persists.

Kind regards,
Marrion

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Thanks, Marrion. I'm traveling for about a week, and won't be able to run through any of these steps 'til I get home.

I can tell you, though, that I never had this issue with the Surface Pro 6 - which had been upgraded to Windows 11. (And since I didn't have the problem, I never looked to see what driver it was running.) I think the Pro 6 and the monitor have the same aspect ratio (again, can't check for sure 'til I get home), while the Pro 9 has a different aspect ratio. I wonder if that's part of the problem?

Will update this as soon as I am able. Thank you for your help!

[=sfc=]

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Hi SFCohen,

I would like to check if you were able to try the steps suggested already and how did it go?

Regarding with the aspect ratio, Surface Pro 9 and Surface Pro 6 has the same aspect ratio of 3:2 so I don't think it is the cause of the issue. See: Surface Pro 6 specs and features - Microsoft Support and Surface Pro 9: 2-in-1 versatility, laptop power, tablet flexibility | Microsoft Surface.

Kind regards,
Marrion

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Hi, Marrion - thank you for all your help! I'm afraid the real problem is that my monitor has finally died. I suppose 15 years is a (beyond) reasonable time for a piece of electronics to last. I've ordered a new one and hopefully it will all be plug-and-play perfection when it arrives.

[=sfc=]

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Hi SFCohen,

Thank you for the update and sorry to hear that the monitor just stops working. Hopefully, the new monitor you ordered would work smoothly. Please let us know how it goes once you have the monitor connected to the device. We'll leave this post open for now and hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards, |
Marrion

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Hi SFCohen,

We haven't heard from you, so we assume that your issue has already been addressed. We will not be monitoring this thread moving forward so, if you need further assistance, please create a new thread to discuss these concerns by clicking this link: Create a new question or start a discussion (microsoft.com)

Thank you for understanding. 

Kind regards,
Marrion

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Last updated February 6, 2024 Views 534 Applies to: