Find the Monitor / Display Device/ TFT / CRT Name or Model

semo

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
292
0
0
I'm looking for a way to find the model number of a computer monitor. By monitor I mean the thing that gives you visual feedback from a computer and connects to the graphics card. I can't find much info on that because monitor and display are synonymous with way too many other computer stuff.

I've tried looking inside Win32_DesktopMonitor but doesn't seem to show it. Graphics cards detect monitor models reliably but where do they get that datum from?

Ideally I want to retrieve this info using a scripting language like powershell
 
Last edited:

semo

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
292
0
0
It seems that the info I need might be found out from the EDID chip on the monitor. I tried the 2 tools below but they don't provide much more info than get-wmi win32_desktopdisplay. Ggraphics cards display a much more accurate and readable model number. Could it be somehow decoded using the data given by the tools below?

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dump_edid.html
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/monitor_info_view.html

I've seen that OCS Inventory NG reports the correct monitor model as well.

Any ideas?
 

Markbnj

Elite Member <br>Moderator Emeritus
Moderator
Sep 16, 2005
15,682
14
81
www.markbetz.net
It's probably exposed through the plug-n-play API, or the graphics drivers may simply rely on the information provided by the monitor driver. In fact, the more I think about it the more likely I think that is. As for how you get to it, I have no idea. Perhaps there is a DirectX API that will get you there.
 

semo

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
292
0
0
I'm not sure if the model number is retrieved from PnP. Win32_DesktopMonitor doesn't show anything under PnP for my second monitor but the GPU reports a model number. It is not entirely accurate but at least it distinguishes it from other models (which is what I need). Also the PnP from Win32_DesktopMonitor looks nothing like what the graphics report.

OCS Inventory shows the correct monitor name (same name as what the graphics card shows) but i prefer not to connect to a mysql database just for that info (which was originally obtained from the PC that the ps script will run on)
 

seemingly random

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2007
5,277
0
0
Think registry if you don't have access to development tools.

for /f "usebackq" %%a in (`reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY"`) do (
. for /f "usebackq" %%b in (`reg query "%%a"`) do (
. . for /f "usebackq delims=; tokens=2" %%c in (`reg query "%%b" /v "DeviceDesc"`) do (
echo %%c
. . )
. )
)

Of course, the leading .(s) must be removed.

The reason for the bizarre 'for' commands is that I assume you will need to use only what's available in a 'usual' os installation.

I'm sure this is not taking something into account as to where you should look in the registry on a wide variety of configurations, but it's a start. It shows the two monitors connected to my system.

btw, the max res reported in nirsoft-monitorinfoview is incorrect for my system.