Using a Laptop as a Monitor

[Jeff Zylstra]

Occasionally I have to take a desktop machine home to work on it at night.  I would like to be able to plug my laptop into the video output of the desktop, and use it as a monitor rather than taking a monitor home.   I've always thought of laptop VGA ports as output only, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.   Is what I asked possible with additional, and if so, how?

[Joshua Conner]

I dont think it works that way. 

I would just remote into it you dont even need a monitor hooked up.

[Jeff Zylstra]

I dont think it works that way. 

I would just remote into it you dont even need a monitor hooked up.

Thanks, Josh.  I should have explained better.  The displays are black, and I am unable to RDP into the machine for some reason.  It displays the Dell "Loading BIOS" messages on screen, but otherwise the displays are black.  I don't even get a chance to go into safe mode.  I was hoping it was just a bad video card that I could check by removing and then connecting to the onboard VGA, but the more I think about it, the more I hear taps playing softly in the background.

[Mark]

Thanks, Josh.  I should have explained better.  The displays are black, and I am unable to RDP into the machine for some reason.  It displays the Dell "Loading BIOS" messages on screen, but otherwise the displays are black.  I don't even get a chance to go into safe mode.  I was hoping it was just a bad video card that I could check by removing and then connecting to the onboard VGA, but the more I think about it, the more I hear taps playing softly in the background.

Is there a blinking cursor in the top left corner?  Did this happen after an update, possibly?

[Jeff Zylstra]

Thanks, Josh.  I should have explained better.  The displays are black, and I am unable to RDP into the machine for some reason.  It displays the Dell "Loading BIOS" messages on screen, but otherwise the displays are black.  I don't even get a chance to go into safe mode.  I was hoping it was just a bad video card that I could check by removing and then connecting to the onboard VGA, but the more I think about it, the more I hear taps playing softly in the background.

Is there a blinking cursor in the top left corner?  Did this happen after an update, possibly?

Yes, it is possible Windows updates could have done this, but I can be certain.  And I don't remember if there was a cursor on the monitors or not.

[Mark]

You could try running startup repair.  That worked for me just last week on a machine that was force rebooted when an update was stuck in the "do not shut down your computer" state.

[Jeff Golas]

Sounds like a corrupted bios - try going into the bios and loading defaults. Worst case scenerio depending on what model it is, some allow you to put a usb key with a specific bios file name into a slot, then do some function to auto-flash the bios if it comes to that.

Regarding laptop as monitor - NO NO NO. In fact even the built-in monitors on most laptops are likely connected via digital means like HDMI or displayport. Other than projectors and those actual VGA ports, nothing really uses analog connections anymore. I see how you're thinkin but it doesn't work that way.