Screens go blank when I attach external monitor on a dell inspiron 13 7349 laptop

Hi wzfoto,

Thanks for posting.

You may wish to restart from the beginning to remove all the problems you've encountered so far.  If you've run the diagnostics program and everything is okay, then you should try reinstalling the OS.  This will erase any inconsistancies in the drivers that may have not been removed during the upgrades.

Is there a better way? Re-install OS and other software on the laptop will be a huge undertaking.

Sounds like its possible that the main display is misconfigured.

What I want you to do is when the device is exhibiting the symptoms.

Press and hold the windows key and press E (1 time)

This should open a windows explorer window ( even if you don't see it.)

Then, while still holding the windows key, press the left or the right arrow key until you see the window.

If you eventually see the window, its probably a configuration issue with the displays.

You should be able to use the explorer window to get to control panel to get to the display properties to remedy the symptoms.

I tried this and I do not see the explorer window when I move the arrow key left, right, up or down.  

I can reproduce this problem, every time I go to display properties and change the screen resolution.  Any suggestions on how I can troubleshoot this issue?  I suspect its driver issue but I am already running the latest.

Let me clarify.  Even if there is no external monitor connected to the laptop, if I try to change the screen resolution, a blank screen appears (no wallpaper) and I can only see my mouse pointer.  The only way to get my screen back is a hard reboot (turn off power, and turn back on).  I notice this blank screen behaviour happens even if I am not changing the screen resolution.  For example I could be surfing the web and all of a sudden the screen goes blank and I can only see my mouse pointer.    

If you can see the mouse pointer, then it suggests that the built-in display is now being treated as a non-primary display.  Can you drag a folder/application window over to that display?  Try dragging one off of both the left and right edges of your main (external) display since Windows may think they're physically arranged differently from the way you actually have them.  Or if you're not already, try setting up a background image (aka wallpaper) and see whether that is displayed on your built-in panel when the external display is connected.  If those tests work, then I'm not sure what the issue is.  What are you trying to achieve?  Do you want the external display to mirror your built-in display rather than functioning as an extension of your main display?

Oh ok, well that's a completely different story then!  Are you actually on Windows 8.0, not even 8.1?  If so, is there a reason you're not updating to 8.1?  Obviously even Windows 8 shouldn't be behaving the way you're seeing, but 8.1 included some fairly significant display subsystem improvements, so it's possible that the drivers you're using are counting on those improvements and weren't properly regression tested for issues on 8.0, especially given that 8.1 was and remains a free upgrade from 8.0, unlike Win10 which was only free briefly.

Windows key + P is the hotkey to change display type.

Can hold the windows key down and press the p once, see if that changes anything,

Then try and press P twice and see if it does anything

Three times

4 times.

There are four options that win + p goest through.