Monitor hooked up to tower, but doesn't turn on

goldhelmet

Posts: 7   +0
Bought the following brand new at Best Buy on 8/22/14, and trying to get setup:

Lenovo K450e desktop tower, keyboard, and mouse.
LG 22MP56HQ monitor
MS Office 2013 (key code)
Webroot internet security (disc)
After connecting everything according to the instruction of both the Lenovo and LG instructions, double & triple checking all parts accounted for and connected properly, here's what happened..

Lenovo tower boots up fine, disc drive in tower opens and closes properly, Lenovo keyboard and mouse both detected. Great so far except...

LG monitor does not turn on at all. In the back of the monitor, two things are connected:
blue HDMI connector with pins on both sides is connected to HDMI connection in back of tower.
AC DC adapter plugged into electrical outlet and other end directly into monitor.

Everything works when power booted up except monitor shows no life - no light indicator, and black screen. Monitor just doesn't turn on at all.

There are driver discs for both lenovo win 8.1 and the LG monitor, and like I said, I can insert them into the tower and close, but nothing happens on the monitor display. Best Buy said it should be no issue using the LG monitor with the Lenovo PC tower. They will charge me $100 to come out to my home, even though I bought two year Geek Squad plan, They also said I would still get charged even if they were unable to get me setup.

Seems like there is one probably really easy fix, but I don't want to pay $100 to have them come out if I get charged regardless of the outcome.

Anyone out there with any idea what could be preventing the monitor from powering up (other than it's bad, which is unlikely, as it was brand new, sealed in the box)??

Thanks.
 
If no standby LED on monitor, is there a separate on/off switch on the side of the monitor?
With LG there are usually manual buttons for CH+- & vol +- plus On/Off (although I have seen monitors with no on/off at all.)
Also check for 'hidden' buttons on the front lower edge of frame or under the front (right) edge.
I would try a different mains lead/cord that is known to to work, also check for a fuse in the plug, could be missing, or isolated with plastic foil.
Even with no inputs the monitor would show a 'No Signal' sign if it was working.
If no 'standby' LED and you have a separate AC to DC adapter block then that could be the problem. All monitors I've seen have a direct AC connection though.
If it then does work, the on-screen menu will need to be selected, and 'input' changed to HDMI.
 
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I am really lost when it comes to electronics/computer hardware terminology. The only buttons are on the monitor are on the right bottom rear. From left to right they read: Menu/L, Reader, Func, auto, input. There are two connections on the back of the computer: 1) HDMI cable with a blue connector on both ends and both ends have the pins on right and left side. I have one end plugged into the monitor and the other end into the tower. 2) The electrical plug in that goes directly into a wall outlet. The instructions have it labeled "AC/DC adapter". It further shows two different versions "depending on country". One shows an adapter with no direct plug in to the wall outlet (no electrical prongs that plug directly into the wall outlet). The 2nd version is the one I have, and it DOES have a direct plug in to the wall outlet on one end, and the other end plugs directly into the monitor. I tried pushing the buttons on the bottom of the monitor - all of them - and nothing happened. Beyond frustrated....
 
There should be a power button on the lower right bottom of the monitor. It's underneath and not visible if you look straight from the front. Aren't there six buttons? You named five. It's the sixth button on the end next to the input button according to the manual.

Check your owner's manual on pages 11 and 12. I don't own this monitor. I just looked up the manual.
 
You're right - there are indeed 6 buttons on the back. The sixth one you referred to on the far right did not have any words - it was a circle figure with a little stem on top. A blue light came on and then the monitor says "checking signal", then it says "D-SUB, no signal, entering power save mode shortly". I have done about five iterations of this, and it does the same thing every time.

There were no pages 11 and 12 that came with this LG model. Just a thin four page diagram sheet.

Also wondering what the proper sequence of inserting the discs that I have - the Lenovo PC win 8.1 drivers pack V 1.8, and then the disc for the LG manual which says "IPS LED monitor, owner's manual, driver install file - monitor driver, dual smart solution, model #'s 22MP56HQ & 24MP56HQ. I've inserted both into the dvd drive in the PC tower, but I can't tell if it's doing anything because I have no monitor display. Are those two discs done first ( and in which order), before I download MS Office 2013 with the key code from the iMicrosoft website, and then the webroot internet security disc is last (4th)? But don't I have to have a monitor display first, before any of those discs are used? So confused...
 
Hi, The monitor has switched on, and has searched for a signal going into the VGA socket on the monitor, but I believe you want to use HDMI, so you will need to press the 'input' button.
A menu should show on screen, then you need to use the buttons for up and down, (small V's) to go up or down the menu to find HDMI option.
Highlight the HDMI option then you might need to press 'menu' again to clear the menu off screen.
You should be able to see the computer's output on screen now.
The driver discs supplied may not be needed, Windows is usually good at finding a decent match automatically.
( It's just possible that you might need to set up the PC with a simple VGA cable first, cable normally supplied with monitors, it has a blue plug with screws each side, on each end.)
 
When I press menu, a menu does come up, but I don't know what you mean by "small v's". Do you mean small V's the letter, or the sideways v's above the comma and period? When you say select, how do I select after the right option is highlighted? Hit enter? On the menu it says "func>dual display on top and exit and input as two separate options on the bottom. It also has four picture/symbols above on top, and one of them is highlighted in black. When I hit the input button on the back of the computer nothing happens and it reverts to power save. When I hit menu, it gives me very little time to move around and then select the desired option. I don't see HDMI written anywhere on the menu. The wide blue connection on both ends with the two pins is inserted in the back of the monitor, where is boldly labeled HDMI. On the other end, on the back of the Lenovo tower, there are two places I can connect it, one is vertical and higher up, and the other is horizontal lower down. I've tried both, but they are not labeled on the tower. The Lenovo tower instructions label the vertical one higher up as VGA. The one below that is horizontal is not listed on the diagram. It is right below the audio connectors and right above PCI Excpress X16 graphics adapter slot. Is this the HDMI connector? It would have to be it the vertical one up top is labeled VGA connector.
 
A quick search of the desktop model suggests you might have a graphics card depending on customization. You should have no problem running a monitor out of the horizontal hdmi slot. The vertical one is built into the motherboard and can only run integrated graphics processing which is weaker.

I also looked up the product manual on your monitor, the LG 22MP56HQ. You shouldn't have to go into the monitor's menu settings to switch input. If its off, there is no light, you should press the power button. But if the light blinks, its powered on but in sleep mode. Use the input button and the monitor should wake again. Keep pressing the input button until HDMI is indicated as being the current output.

If you still can't get anything displayed, my next suggested step in troubleshooting is to get another HDMI device. A gaming console or blu-ray player should do. There is plenty of other HDMI capable devices out there and they should all work. If we can verify that the monitor does work, we could then concentrate on troubleshooting the PC instead.
 
There were no pages 11 and 12 that came with this LG model. Just a thin four page diagram sheet.
The symbol you mentioned is a universal icon for the On switch which you will find on most electronic and computer equipment. I suggest going to the LG website and download the PDF file for the manual for your monitor as I did. It couldn't hurt and it might help you sort out some of your questions.
 
Hi, By 'small V's' I mean the markings on the monitor's buttons at lower right of screen.
The idea is that you can set up and choose all the options from those buttons.
The menu button gets you into and out of, the options menu, and the 'up & down' arrows or 'V's' (like on PC cursors keys) moves up and down in the menu.
On screen there are normally instructions about what selects options, mostly highlight the option you want (HDMI input) then do nothing, wait...... and menu will vanish.
I have downloaded the manual, will reply once I have read it through later.
 
Okay, first check that you are getting power to the monitor, there should be a yellow standby light on the front indicating this, if its black then you are not getting power.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you chose to go with HDMI as many monitors cannot display full 1080p without letterboxing. So get a VGA or DVI cable and connect it to the monitor and your tower, you should get some sort of display, if not then check if you are using a video card, its possible the pc is using the onboard input instead of the video card, you can change this in the BIOS from integrated to PCI or express graphics. While you have the VGA/DVI cable attached you may check to ensure the resolution selected can be supported by the monitor. Try lowering the resolution to 1600x900 and try your hdmi cable again.

If you've gotten this far any you still have no display then I would hook this monitor up to a laptop or some other source to confirm you have a working monitor.

Drop the geek squad plan, its a ripoff.
 
If the HDMI cable is plugged into the correct output and input, then it's only the monitor's
menu that needs to be set to 'HDMI' rather than 'D-Sub'.
BUT reading the manual it states that if only one signal is detected (by monitor) then it will be selected.
The relevant buttons on the back of the monitor are power ON/OFF (Far right hand button) and,
Input, (second from right).
All the other buttons are to do with colour etc and 'reader' mode which is not important here.
On the Lenovo tower the correct output for HDMI is the lower (horizontal) one, below the 3.5mm audio sockets.
 
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Good news.... and another issue. First, the good news. I finally was able to get monitor display last night after fiddling around the buttons on the lower right hand side of the monitor. There are clearly HDMI inputs on both the PC and the monitor. The one on the back of the monitor says in bold letters HSMI. Then, I switched back to the original connection I tried before, the horizontal one down lower, and then, by pressing the buttons on the monitor got it up and running. I wasn't quite sure which combination of buttons and in what sequence I pressed, but I didn't really care at that point. Eureka! Thanks for all of your input! I think the combination of everyone's input, and me determined that I did not need to pay some Geek Squad hundreds of dollars did it!!
Now, to a less severe problem, but a frustrating problem nonetheless. I have no audio sound. I went to device manager, it said Realtek driver was installed. I tried uninstalling and re-installing the latest audio driver from the manufacturer's website - Lenovo desktop - and checked for the latest driver audio driver update, reinstalled, rebooted. That didn't work. I double and triple checked volume levels on system audio, and they are all turned up to max volume and not muted.

Thoughts?
 
The spec for you PC says it has (up to) 7.1 sound, but in reality most people have just 2 speakers plugged into the 3.5mm audio outputs on the back of the tower.
Not sure if your monitor has speakers built-in but the sound will be fairly poor if it does.
The menu does have an audio level to adjust but it may be for the headphone output on the back of monitor. Can you plug heaphones into that, check if sound is there?
Otherwise you need to check the speaker setup in Windows.
So in 'search' (top right screen) type 'audio devices' and click the second filter down to 'settings'.
The top result will be 'manage audio devices' , click that.
A new windows shows with a speaker and a green tick on it (hopefully).
Right-click on that speaker icon and choose 'configure speakers'.
You will see all the options there to set the sound output to the speakers you have.
 
I don't have speakers to hook up. My most recent desktop was an IMAC and keyboard, and I got sound fine. This is a tower a d a monitor and a keyboard.
 
OK, no speakers at the moment, so if you have some modern headphones from an MP3 player or any with the small 3.5mm plug, you can plug into the headphone socket on the back of the monitor.
The volume will depend on the setting in the audio section in the onscreen menu.
Also most PC's output stereo sound from the green 3.5mm socket on the back of the tower.
Generally monitors don't have speakers, but TV's that can also be monitors do have built in speakers, the quality is usually very poor in my experience.
Speaker prices vary greatly from say $20 upwards, I have a small set of HP multimedia speakers which are surprisingly good quality, price was £10 (UK).
 
Ok, I tried the headphones. Didn't work for monitor, but did when hooked in to the back of the tower. I'm just wondering why I need to use the headphones to hear audio and would have to purchase speakers? When I had an IMAC desktop. granted. there was no tower, but I could listen with or without headphones. Is it because the IMAC monitor was also the PC itself (no tower needed) and had built in speakers, and this particular monitor does not have built in speakers?
 
I guess it's because a monitor is display only, this comes from days when computers dd not produce any sounds at all, and didn't need to.
If you are old enough to have used CRT screens, in the Windows 3.1/95/98/XP days you will know how bad the displays were.
Now we have very high quality displays, but the screens are very thin, and there is no room to fit 'decent' speakers. So they are separate and can be really high quality sound.
Note all modern flat screen TV's have separate sound bars....same reason.
If you have, or can borrow to test an ipod sound dock, you might find it's good enough for a start.
You would need a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo lead, plug one end into the green socket on the tower, the other end into the 3.5mm 'aux' input on the ipod dock.
For instance; Sony ICF-CS10IP has been very well reviewed over the last 5 years.
But there are many options, Bluetooth wireless sounds boxes are everywhere now, or anything by Logitech, or HP would be fine.
Good starting point would be Logitech Z150 or Z200.
If you want better 'bass' in music or movies on the PC then you will need a 2.1 system such as Logitech Z313. You can spend hundreds of dollars on this if you can or want to.
Your Lenovo tower has a really good audio system so you can try many options.

 
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