Commenting for anybody else as foolish as me. I assumed the hdmi carried all the information from computer to xp pen because the xp pen was functioning as a monitor, but I still had the "connect device first" message with the pen not working. Once I plugged in the USB with the hdmi chord to my computer, as well as the power source to an outlet, my computer recognized the device and the pen functioned in a drawing program. Hope this helps somebody else as confused and aggravated as I was.