Switching between laptop monitor and desktop monitor

[hopkins_student]

Hopefully this is a stupid question for which there is a really simple solution. I have a Dell laptop with a 15" screen that runs at 1920x1080. I just bought an external monitor that is an ultrawide (21:9) aspect ratio and runs at 2580x1080. Every time I switch back and forth it eliminates my background wallpaper and leaves me with a black background. Is there any way to tell it to display one background with one monitor configuration and another background with the other monitor configuration? Or is there any other way to fix this? Thanks for your help.

h_s

 

[whiteslashasian]

Are you extending your desktop across two screens (one screen has your start menu and taskbar etc the other is just the wall paper that you can drag windows/programs to) or are you mirroring the main display or only using the external monitor as the main display?

Thanks.

 

[hopkins_student]

When I'm using the big external monitor I'm using that as the main display. I do take the laptop on the go fairly frequently, and the problem occurs when I disconnect the laptop from the external monitor and use the built in screen.

 

[MikeDT]

Try updating the display drivers. If you've got Nvidia graphics get the drivers from Nvidia''s website, ATI from ATI's website, etc.

The other thing is how much display RAM and total RAM has the machine got, because 2580x1080 is a rather high resolution. I assume this is Windows, what version is it? If it's starting to run out of memory, could be that non-essential eye candy like wallpaper might get disabled.

 

[hopkins_student]

Seems to have worked. Thanks.

Is there any way to set it so that when it's using the native 16:9 display it shows one wallpaper and when I hook it up to the 21:9 external monitor it shows another one? I haven't found any awesome 21:9 wallpapers yet, but I'm hoping I'll come across one.

 

[hopkins_student]

Well, actually it didn't work. Looks like it works until the the computer goes to sleep while it's connected to the external monitor. When it wakes up it's back to just a plain black background. :/

 

[MikeDT]

Have a look at this, it's about Vista but probably applies to other versions as well.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ppearing/da3bcfb8-903c-4400-903c-4038818d8923

 

[MikeDT]

I've seen a couple of Windows 7 machines do this very recently, losing wallpaper, going black background when switching monitors. Could be a bug in Windows? Maybe a recent second Tuesday update caused it.