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We have a large TV at work - I connect my laptop to it to share my screen during meetings. Until today, my laptop display has been duplicating to the TV automatically when I connect the TV cable to the laptop. The display resolution would decrease automatically to be compatible with the TV.

Today, however, it's stopped working. When I connect the cable to the TV, the display extends rather than duplicating. Using the Win+P key combination (or Fn+F7 on my Lenovo laptop), I can choose to duplicate the display - but when I do this, it ends up only displaying on the laptop. I can get it to display on the TV by hitting Win+P and choosing "projector only", but then I can't see what I'm doing on the laptop screen.

I have a Lenovo W520 laptop running Windows 7, connected to the TV using a DisplayPort-to-HDMI converter cable. The TV's native resolution is 1280x720; the laptop's native resolution is 1600x900.

I've tried booting with the TV cable already connected; I've tried manually lowering the display resolution on the laptop to 1280x720 before duplicating the display. Neither works.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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You should have an icon in the lower right of your screen (taskbar) related to your graphics in your computer (Nvidia, Intel, etc.). Right-clicking that icon you should be able to get to something like "display settings", where you should find an option for cloning your display, or dual-display, or something like that. Using that option should restore the dual-monitor display function.

If that doesn't take care of it, it would be much more helpful to have your laptop's specs and configuration. Graphics card, info, etc.

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  • Thanks - I'm away from the office now but I'll try this tomorrow. The graphics card is an Nvidia Quadro 1000M. I see the multiple display options in the Nvidia control panel, I'll see if that works.
    – rbeier
    Sep 7, 2011 at 3:15
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    Thanks - this worked. I went into the "set up multiple displays" section of the Nvidia control panel. Under "2. Drag the icons to match your display configuration", I right-clicked the TV (display #2) and chose "Duplicate with 1 (use 1 as source)". It seems to be remembering these settings now.
    – rbeier
    Sep 8, 2011 at 1:21
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    This worked for me too with nvidia. Right-clicked display 2 and selected "clone with > 1". Then hit apply... BAM!
    – Rafe
    Feb 20, 2015 at 16:27
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I had the same issue on Vista. I have a 50" HDTV at home that I watch Netflix from my laptop. Every few days I would take the laptop to work and when I would get home connect the HDMI cable and the screen was cloned onto the 50" HDTV.

In my taskbar I found "Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile".

  1. then I right clicked choose "Graphic Options"
  2. moused over "Output to"
  3. moused over "Clone Displays"
  4. clicked on "Built-in Display + Digital Television" and resolved my issue.
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I had a similar problem with my laptop going into my Sony LED TV. Turned out to be a setting on my TV remote control. It was on THEATER mode, once I clicked to switch it off, no problem.

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I couldn't get "duplicate" to work for any secondary display. The image just stayed on my laptop monitor. There are a number of ways to tell the laptop to duplicate the image from my laptop to another monitor. When the rest failed, here is the one that worked for me:

  1. Connect the secondary display to the laptop.
  2. Right click on the laptop monitor
  3. Choose "Screen Resolution"
  4. There is a field called "Multiple Displays:" with a drop down box beside it.
  5. Click the drop down and choose "Duplicate these displays"
  6. Click OK
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  • Same problem here. The option "Duplicate these displays" has disappeared from the drop down menu.
    – Marco Panichi
    Dec 4, 2016 at 17:49

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