ACER TravelMate fn + f5 key doesn’t work

This time I was trying to display video from my laptop to an external monitor (actually to a HDTV) using a VGA cable by pressing the Alt-f5 or Alt-f6 keys… or Alt-fn+f5 five times and then press five times again and CTRL + this and that (those were the instructions I got on another website) and after reading a couple of articles on the internet from people having the same problem I came up with the solution… well sort of.

At first, having the VGA cable connected to the monitor and the laptop made the Windows "start up screen" to show up on the external monitor but not on the laptop, but then after Windows completed the booting process the external monitor turned off and the laptop screen became active. I tried various combinations with the ALT, Fn and CTLR keys as I already mentioned but nothing seem to work, and that's when I made a more careful re-search over the Display Properties box and wel..., this is what I did:

1) Right click on your desktop (right on your wallpaper on any area with no windows or anything)
2) Click properties >> Settings >> Advanced (the Plug and Play monitor properties box pops-up)
3) Click on Utility Manager >> Driver Mode Settings (the Driver Mode settings box pops-up)
4) And finally… well I don’t remember exactly what I did at this point but I’m pretty sure everything worked after playing for a while with these options. Just make sure the “Power on Secondary Device” box is checked and click on “Display Devices Detection”.



Note: Playing with the Driver Mode Settings only made the Windows XP wallpaper to show up on the external monitor (the windows XP wallpaper ONLY with no icons or shortcuts or anything), and it wasn't AFTER I left the “Power on Secondary Device” box checked AND restarted the computer that it worked, and there it was BOTH monitors working and displaying everything as it should be. To turn off the laptop screen I pressed the FN+F6 key that by the way is used to turn the laptop screen off.

So, there you go, if after pressing the F5 or F6 keys (or whatever keys) to display video on an external monitor wasn’t working for you, it should be working now… I guess… thanks to me… if it’s working… if not… well I’m sorry to hear that, click the back button and keep googling… but thanks for reading and good luck, bye.