I use a VGA cable from laptop to Samsung TV to watch films. It recognises the laptop and I get a working picture etc. Dual display set up as extended monitor. Basically everything works fine.

Then randomly, sometimes after 10mins, sometimes after an hour, the tv goes blank and appears to disconnect itself. I lose the picture on the tv and the laptop blinks and seems to switch back to single display. Wait 10seconds, disconnect then reconnect the cable and we’re back where we started. This is driving me mad!!

Laptop is stable and not touched or moved, so it’s not like the cable gets knocked loose. Googled the issue to no avail. Anyone any ideas??

Change the power settings so the display/hard drives are ‘always on’ when plugged into mains power? (Although the randomness probably means this isn’t the issue)

Try setting it so the laptop goes blank as soon as the TV is plugged in, rather than extending the display.

Spooky, thanks for the suggestions. Had thought it might be something to do with the power/display settings. Screen going to sleep. Changed these to always on and full power mode whilst plugged in a few days ago. Didn’t fix it.

Tried your other suggestion just now(setting to ‘Show desktop only on display 2’) and got about 20m into watching ‘Looper'(Just long enough to believe this might have worked) before it blinked and display re appeared on laptop. 👿

bumpety for any more ideas

Well its either the laptop or tv going to sleep, surely.

No real idea. If its the laptop look for other standby power off options. If its the telly thats harder but it might have an eco mode setting that can be set to never got to standby. Its possible the tv doesn’t percieve the vga input as proper use

Oh try giving the mouse a wiggle now and again…..

I;ve had a couple of laptops that have specifically said that for playing DVDs you have to be using only the external display, not the internal one as well. ie. it wouldn’t work in extended display mode as you are doing. It would work for a while, just not all the time. I’m guessing that it is a heating issue.

It might not be the issue that you have, I just throw it up as a possibility.

One last idea, set the laptop so you can shut the lid once the film has started playing on the box. i.e. closing the lid ‘does nothing’ rather than telling the laptop to sleep.

Lift the laptop using a couple of books to try and avoid overheating, the cooling fan could cause a ‘blip’ when it kicks in. This used to be really irritating when I played games online as it would normally result in a crash into the armco or being riddled with bullets 😉 (and take the fan cover off and check the grill/heatsink isn’t clogged with dust, if the lappy is more than 12 months old it probably will be choked)

Cheers for the ideas. Will have a play around with some of those things and report back if I find what solves it.

Overheating of something sounds a good fit, so will clean out the fan cover and seat it on something.