Help! My Dell monitor Display 22 EN33 suddenly became my primary display?

Well, congratulations, you finally have the correct driver for your monitor installed on your computer. 😁

You’re just saying it lags, but you aren't saying when. Does it stutter specifically on macOS when nothing else is open, or does it happen in things like Notepad or Word... or just in the browser? By the way, which browser are you using, and have you tried a different one?

It’s possible Norton and Windows Defender are clashing, or maybe it's your virus scanner doing real-time file scanning that's causing the hitching. Try temporarily disabling the real-time protection and virus scans for both programs and see if the lag persists. Your PC is older and pretty weak; you don't have much RAM, so anything is on the table.

It’s possible everything you’ve loaded up and everything you're running won't fit in your RAM, so the poor thing is constantly swapping to the pagefile and pulling it back into memory. On top of that, your drive is small and slow. It’s probably fragmented as hell, so all that reading and writing to the disk can cause delays. Check how much free space you actually have, clean up the drive, and run a test with some freeware tools to make sure your disk isn't failing you. If everything looks fine, then go ahead and defragment it.

Those are just the preliminary steps you need to take to rule out possibilities one by one. Also, if you have any resident programs running, kill them all to free up some RAM.

EDIT:

I see you fixed the issue, but regardless, take a look at my post and do those things so you can get back to hanging out here sooner. 😬

Bradley Lewis59 said:Well, congratulations. You finally have the correct monitor driver installed on your computer. 😁

🤣 Hahahaha, yeah... I mean, deep down I knew I didn't have it, but my first thought was just, "Who cares?" 🙂

darkowl72 said:You're just saying it stutters, but you aren't specifying when. Does the stuttering happen in macOS even when nothing is open, or does it occur while using things like Notepad or Word... or is it strictly in the browser? By the way, which browser are you using, and have you tried switching to a different one?

It is entirely possible that Norton and Windows Defender are clashing, or perhaps that lag is being caused by a virus scanner performing real-time file inspections. I would suggest temporarily disabling the real-time protection and active scanning for both programs to see if the stuttering persists. Since your computer is a bit older and on the weaker side, and you don't have much RAM, almost anything is a possibility.

Another possibility is that everything you have loaded and running simply won't fit into your RAM, forcing the poor thing to constantly swap data to the pagefile and back. On top of that, your hard drive is small and slow. It is likely also heavily fragmented, so that constant reading and writing to the disk can cause noticeable delays. Please check how much free space you have left, run some disk cleanup, and use a freeware tool to test the drive just to ensure it isn't failing you. If everything looks healthy, then go ahead and defragment it.

These are all just preliminary steps meant to help you rule out possibilities one by one. Additionally, if you have any resident background programs running, I'd recommend closing them all to free up some much-needed memory.

EDIT:

I see you managed to resolve the issue, but regardless, please take a look at my post and follow those steps so you can get back to hanging out here sooner rather than later. 😬

I will, thank you so much for everything—both for this thread and for the advice regarding the laptop. 🙂

It’s highly likely the mouse sensor is just acting up, which explains why it was dragging or sticking.

You didn't break anything by installing that; it’ll probably end up being useful anyway, especially if you were missing a component or just needed a driver update.

Man, I’m running into the exact same headache. It used to show up as a Generic non-pnp monitor, so I figured I’d just wipe the drivers and start fresh. Now? It’s telling me it’s just some VGA display device. View on imgur

My setup is an ASUS G41M4 board paired with an AMD Radeon equivalent. Monitor is a Dell SyncMaster 940 nw. I already nuked the old drivers and tried installing the new ones, but nothing's working. Ran a scan with Norton too—clean as a whistle. No viruses.

That might just be a standard description for your monitor. Did it ever actually display the SyncMaster name on its own screen?

Anyway, if you've got your GPU drivers installed and kept macOS updates turned on, then you've already done everything you can.

It used to say SyncMaster.

Timothy Kim60 said:It’s highly probable the mouse sensor just gave out on you, which explains why you were experiencing those stutters.

You haven't actually broken anything by installing that; if anything, it should prove useful down the road—either by filling a gap or simply ensuring your drivers are current.

👍

This is actually the first time I've ever witnessed a mouse issue causing such havoc within macOS. It wasn't just the cursor acting up; it was interfering with typing and general system responsiveness too. macOS hah. But the main thing is that everything seems to be functioning perfectly now, so thanks, darkowl72.🙂

It seems like you're getting a little paranoid here. Just try to relax 😁 Look, if there aren't any yellow warning icons popping up in your Device Manager, then everything is installed perfectly fine. It turns out the whole issue was just a glitchy mouse. From what I can tell, Malwarebytes only flagged two PUPs—which isn't even technically a virus...