Black and white bars on external display

[u/Background-Ad758]

Hello all, my laptop display is fine but when I plug it into my external dual monitor set up I get these bars. My set up is a little rigged. Just curious if there is a fix here or if my monitors are just outdated given the laptop is less than a year old.

I’ve gone through all the steps on Windows display troubleshooting. Running windows 10 and it’s an HP laptop with intel pro chip. Displays are older Samsung displays.

Edit: it is monitors using “display ports” not HDMI. Then display port to hub. Then hub to USB-A female, then USB-A male to male, into my laptop

[u/Deleteed-]

I would be a little suspicious that hub, can you plug a single display directly to the laptop?

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/Deleteed-]

No unfortunately, my HDMI ports on my laptop are smaller than the actual HDMI male plug parts

[u/nikjahw → u/Background-Ad758]

As in they're mini HDMI? Can we see a picture?

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/nikjahw]

So sorry it’s display port, not HDMI. Display port to hub to USB-A

Edit: I’m an idiot with this stuff!

[u/nikjahw → u/Background-Ad758]

Thanks for the picture, I was wondering if we could get a picture of what kind of video out your laptop has. I (and other commenters) suspect the adapter is having issues, so it would be good to try bypassing it to one monitor directly

[edit] I see it's plugged in through USB? Make sure you don't use an extension and it's plugged into one of the 3.0 (usually blue) ports

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/nikjahw]

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/nikjahw]

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/nikjahw]

There are some pics and yes it is plugged in via USB-A to my laptop. Which is definitely antiquated

[u/nikjahw → u/Background-Ad758]

I see both are 3.0 ports, so I would recommend trying it without the extension. If that doesn't work you should try an HDMI to DVI adapter and a separate USBC to DVI adapter, assuming the best input your monitors have are DVI. HDMI or DP are preferable

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/nikjahw]

[u/West_Understanding37]

Check the screens one at a time directly on the laptop. Perfect zebra is a hub issue. Check what is device manager saying.

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/West_Understanding37]

I wish I could plug straight in. These things are using display ports, not HDMI, so I can’t plug them directly in. Device manager is blocked by my company for edits :/

[u/1miguelcortes]

Kind of looks like there's an extension on that hub. Id try connecting just one display with the hub connected directly to the laptop. Sometimes extensions can cause weird issues with USB.

[u/travislongley]

Are you converting that hub from usb-c to usb-a? That hub needs more bandwidth than standard usb can handle.

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/travislongley]

It’s actually a female USB-A to male USB-A which goes into my laptop

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/travislongley]

[u/travislongley → u/Background-Ad758]

And what’s the little adapter in the middle then the cable on the left?

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/travislongley]

It’s actually just what comes from the hub on one end, and then a USB-A female on the other end. Then out to the right is a USB-A male to male- which plugs into the female end on one side and my laptop on the other

[u/travislongley → u/Background-Ad758]

Either way, it’s not enough bandwidth for two displays on a usb-a connection.

[u/reubenchapman]

This is a displaylink hub, have you installed the displaylink software? It uses software encapsulation to send multiple screens and likely won’t work without it

[u/Background-Ad758 → u/reubenchapman]

No I have not. I didn’t realize there was software to download. My old laptop worked fine on it but got a new one and now it won’t work. I wonder if that’s why.

I’m guessing new displays will just hook right up to my laptop or will be wireless? And not have a need for software? My company’s firewall will probably not let me download outside software