Spent 4 hours troubleshooting dad's computer (well, not the full 4 hours, but I spent 4 hours over at my parents' place in total, including free dinner) to figure out why it wouldn't work with dad's brand new big monitor.
Turns out that I needed to set the monitor from Displayport 1.2 to Displayport 1.1. Of course, the OSD with those settings wasn't even accessible without a working computer attached to it... so glad I brought my laptop along so I could actually get to the monitor's settings.
Couldn't display the full 4K resolution either on his old rig, but so long the aspect ratio was right, 1440p is fine for him. He wanted stuff to be displayed big anyway (scaled up his display by 175% on top of this too).
While I had my laptop around, I also made a shitton of notes about dad's equipment so that I have some reference material at hand next time I need to troubleshoot his PC again. Might need it next time when we go replace his HDD for an SSD.
All in all, the evening ended satisfactory... it's a lot easier to fix stuff if you have a reliable computer next to you. I love my laptop.
#Hardware #Techie
@freeschool This was actually my second attempt. First attempt was just trying to connect the new monitor and see if it works. Answer: It didn't work. And considering I didn't have my laptop with me, it was frustrating as I couldn't keep track of my activities.
So after 2 days I returned with a laptop and a lot more fervour. Having a laptop at hand helps a lot since you can look up information easier that way and make notes.
Like a mechanic, having another computer helps start the other one :) A laptop nearby or probably more often in the past a 2nd desktop after hauling it to a friend to re-install and solve things in a room where people like me were growing computers like cats!
(not even going to dig out a picture for that!)
Perhaps you still live like this or can imagine someone else's room with lots of stuff on top of each other!
Thanks @trinsec
A great session troubleshooting. Sounds good. Probably what most of us have got through give or take many hours wondering why :) but I'm happy you did it in one go.
@trinsec