I recently bought a second monitor for a dual-display setup. My PC has only one HDMI port, so I connected the primary monitor with HDMI-to-HDMI and the second monitor with HDMI on the monitor side and DisplayPort on the PC side. The primary display works normally, but the second monitor stays inactive even though Windows detects both displays. I tried extended and duplicated modes, checked the NVIDIA display settings, and tested different DisplayPort ports, but nothing initially helped. The second monitor eventually turned on by itself, although I'm still not sure why.
1 Answer
What exact cable or adapter did you buy? HDMI-to-DisplayPort connections are directional, so a simple cable may only work from DisplayPort output to HDMI input. Since your PC is outputting DisplayPort and the monitor is receiving HDMI, you generally need an active DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter or a correctly rated cable. If the monitor has a DisplayPort input, using DisplayPort on both ends would be the simplest option.
The monitor does have DisplayPort, but I’m new to this and bought a cable with HDMI on the monitor end and DisplayPort on the PC end. I’ll check whether it’s an active adapter or use DisplayPort directly.