You could check for bad electrical contacts:

- check for dirt or oxidization on male connectors, clean with contact cleaner. Alternately, unplug and plug back in several times, this can sometimes scrape away enough oxidization to make connections reliable again
- check for debris in female connectors, blow out with compressed air
- old computers may have had video connectors plugged and unplugged many times and become worn or damaged. You may need to make sure plugs are fully seated and not strained or forced to make sharp, short-radius turns
- do these functions with both signal and power cables as applicable, every place where there's an electrical connection

With Dells you can download and run SupportAssist to make sure the BIOS and other low-level drivers are up-to-date.

>I haven't searched on this topic but wondering if any of you have a similar experience.
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>I have an old Dell Laptop with an Acer monitor (old model too). At my current workplace I'm also using Dell (newer model).
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>With my old laptop I have been noticing that the monitor will go black with nothing to show. Turning it off and on again seems to help (but not in 100% cases).
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>I also started noticing something similar with my work setup although in that case the second monitor will just turn black for a very short period of time and then back on.
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>Do you think it may some new settings causing this effect?
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>Thanks in advance.