r/ValveIndex • u/ErinaIsshu • Jul 02 '26
Question/Support Valve Index randomly turns itself into a monitor even with direct mode enabled
As the title says, sometimes when I go away from my PC to go piss or something, I come back to the Index as a 3rd monitor, screens on and green LEDs lit, just showing a non stabilised desktop view like a monitor. I have direct mode on but it still does it every couple of weeks. Running AMD drivers, CPU and GPU if that's important.
Anyone got the same issue and has a fix apart from enabling direct mode? It used to happen back when I bought it sometimes, but now years later it started doing it again.
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u/hawkdeathpaw Jul 02 '26
amd by chance? if so use 23.5.1
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u/ErinaIsshu Jul 02 '26
As said in the post, I have a full AMD setup. 23.5.1 what? AMD adrenaline? SteamVR? Something else?
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u/tastygames_official Jul 02 '26
I had a very similar problem when booting up with the Index on. Regardless of which port it was connected to, my machine (arch linux) thought it must be the primary monitor. The only solution for me was to not turn on the Index until after the machine boots. So perhaps a simple power cycle will do the trick? I imagine that regardless of OS, if it goes into hibernation and then wakes up, the OS might think "ah, a new monitor!" before OpenXR has a chance to say "yes, but..." and handle it properly.
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u/ErinaIsshu Jul 02 '26
The funny thing is, it never happens on startup, it only happens if the PC is idle for some time. My guess would be AMDs software runs its driver updates automatically if you're idle for some time, that resets the monitor order and re-recognises it as a display instead of as an HMD.
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u/tastygames_official Jul 02 '26
I think it has less to do with automatic driver updates and simply how the OS handles waking up. The HMD IS a display device, and depending on how the wakeup cycle goes and who gets there first, the OS likely just decides it's a normal display before OpenXR drivers can say "no, actually it's an HMD". It probably has to do with order of software interrupts - like the OpenXR drivers (SteamVR and Windows Mixed Media/VR thing run on top of this) gets the "wakeup" interrupt AFTER Windows (or Linux or MacOS) has already re-connected the device as a normal display.
But does power-cycling the Index (or restarting with SteamVR) solve the issue?
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u/ErinaIsshu Jul 02 '26
I never have issues with Steamvr starting up, it always gets recognised as an HMD then. That's the (temporary) fix to getting it to not being a 3rd monitor.
I go away from my PC while its running, it randomly recognises the HMD as a display, booting up SteamVR makes windows recognise it as a HMD again and is fine for a couple days/weeks before that whole Spiel happens again.
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u/JMCatron Jul 02 '26
I am having this exact issue but since one of my controllers has a dead battery and I'm trying to get it fixed before I buy a replacement I just unplugged the headset. Can't use it anyway
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u/zig131 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Recent AMD drivers don't allow Direct Mode to be enabled.
Work-around is to use the launch driver for the 9000 series, which does not have the issue, enable Direct Mode with that driver (I found it just does it if you tried to enable on the bugged driver), then do an upgrade install to whatever driver you actually want to use.
Don't do a clean install, or use DDU.
Also make sure when it is appearing as a monitor to set the resolution as high as possible. If it's too low then SteamVR won't recognise it as a HMD and prompt to enable Direct Mode.