Premiere crashes when using external monitor

[AlaskanNomadProductions]

Hey all.  I'm trying to switch from Mac to Windows for the second time in two years.  The first time didn't go so well. This time... not so much.  I'm beginning to wonder if it is, indeed, possible to use Adobe products on Windows machines.  ANYONE out there have any luck?  Ha!

So here's the deal.  Whenever I go into the Playback settings in Premiere and turn on my external monitor, Premiere locks up and the video in both the Source and Project monitors freeze.  The external monitor goes black, doesn't display anything.  When I try to shut down Premiere, the software locks up and I have to force quit.  I found a similar posting about this here Crash when trying to use external monitor , but I don't have the Sonic Suite installed.  Realtek Audio does power my microphones, speakers, headsets, etc.  I have tried disabling everything Realtek I could find, but it does not help.  I have tried turning off CUDA, using the software only option, no dice.  To make sure it's not some weird codec thing I have been using Premiere's "Bars and Tone" as the footage.  I have tried to do a clean re-install of the software and it has no effect.  I'm going straight out of the HDMI port to make sure it's not an adapter issue.

I would be happy not to have to send back yet another Windows machine.  If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate the help!

Specs:

Dell Alienware Laptop 15 r4, 15.6-inch display

Premiere Pro CC 12.1.2

Windows 10 Home 64-bit

8th Generation Intel i7-8750H

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 OC with 8GB GDDR5

32GB DDR4-2666MHz RAM

[varung50761248]

Amen brother! AMEN! 

[varung50761248]

Phewwwww!!!

I just built a new system ... with top of the line specs and I was facing this issue.

My system is not even 2 days old ... I spent close to 3 hrs with Adobe support thinking they'd know. As the external monitor playback was working fine on my old system.

THANKS TO YOU! I can breath now! Lol

Cheers mate! Appreciate you help and insight for the same. 

God Bless You!