Main screen dims (almost unreadable) unless a window is open / Win 8.1

I’m running an Alienware Alpha wih Windows 8.1. The Alpha has an Nvidia chipset and a single HDMI output.

I’m using the system with Oculus DK2 VR goggles.

The Oculus won’t run as the computer’s primary display, so I added the Plugable 4K USB Video box to give me a primary display while the Oculus runs from the built in HDMI port. My monitor runs via the 4K box. Both displays are recognized. The Oculus has to be the primary display and the displays are extended, not mirrored.

If no windows are open on the monitor, it dims to the point where you can no longer see the taskbar and you can barely see the mouse cursor.

As soon as I open ANY window (file explorer or an app), the monitor returns to full brightness.

If I minimize all the open windows, it goes back to greyed out mode.

I think I’ve checked all the obvious things. What am I doing wrong?

Hi Nick,

Thanks for posting! As we don’t recommend our USB Video adapters based on DisplayLink technology for gaming, we haven’t tested any of our USB video adapters with any Oculus Rift gear and given the high resource demands placed on a system by the Oculus hardware we wouldn’t recommend using our USB video adapters in conjunction.

A quick search shows there are several posts in the Oculus support forums indicating that many users who have DisplayLink-based devices along with the Oculus Rift hardware encounter difficulties and must remove the DisplayLink software to have their Oculus hardware work properly (and Oculus admins recommend uninstalling the DisplayLink software as they term it ‘problematic’):

https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.p…
https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.p…
https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.p…
https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.p…

That said, a quick test to determine if some interaction between the Oculus software and DisplayLink is causing the issue would be to completely uninstall all Oculus related software and drivers and then test if the behavior with our adapter changes.

If the behavior goes away then we know there is a software conflict and we’ll want to proceed with having you return the item for a refund. We have a 30-day no-hassle return policy on all of our products via the automated system at amazon.com/returns.

Thank you,

Bob
Plugable Technologies
www.plugable.com/support

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply. I’m not actually using the Oculus for gaming, so our realtime rendering needs aren’t any kind of strain on the system. I was hoping that would mean I could use the Plugable, but it seems not.

For the record, I don’t think this is primarily a Pugable issue. The Oculus is BY FAR the most finicky piece of gear I have ever worked with, and I’ve spent 20+ years in tech. It’s drivers and requirements are temperamental at best.

I’ve returned the unit but will gladly recommend it to friends in the future.

-Nick

Hi Nick,

Thanks for getting back with the update, and thank you very much for your understanding and kind words. In my brief read of the Oculus forums it sounds like it will be a very interesting product when released :slight_smile:

Have a good day,

Bob