Multihead issue - have to start display settings

[WodkaBylaZaSlona]

Hi,

I'm trying to use an external monitor as a second one to my VN7-592G notebook. It is connected to HDMI interface (and Intel card). But it works strangely.

After a cold boot the monitor reports, that there is no signal on HDMI. I have to start KDE display settings and then connect an external monitor. Which is now visible, but I cannot change it's resolution.
If I close and start display settings one more time - it shows possible resolutions correctly.

Moreover, during startup of some steam games (for example Civilization VI), my external monitor disappears from display settings and reports "no signal" once again. After that I can start display settings, plug my monitor and everything seems to work.

Do I have to plug in and plug out my monitor several times per day ? What could be the root cause?

[Roman_Gruber]

This is more my experience / opinion

on my notebook with dedicated nvidia gpu, only the internal screen could be rendered with "opengl" games.

the solved it recently, so that when i play e.g. urbanterror from the tarball, in window mode, the external screen works. last previous 2 updates of nividia-drivers

I assume it is more hardware related, what my 660m gtx from nvidia can do or can't do.

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There are several things to do:

The screen has to be recognized by the OS. so the edid has to be correct, cable should transmit it correctly. means the screen should not have a buggy firmware, cable should be correct, laptop should not have a buggy firmware.

the hardware should be able to drive the game + the ordinary x session. this may be impossible by the lack of power, possibilities of intel gpus + lack of software support. therefore i personally refuse to buy any intel related product, any intel gpu related notebook. they do not work in windows 10 / linux so far! In my personal eye to eye usecase. I do not really care when other claim they work. they did not work here at my spot with several different notebooks! There are still my bugs open regarding intel gpu / intel ivybridge gpu on kernel.org for over a year from intel guy at kernel.org.

you have to set up the X server correctly.
e.g. with nvidia properitary driver, i use nvidia-settings, to first initalize the screen where it should be virtually.
e.g. left of main screen, this resolution, this vfrq, active

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Regarding your question

steam is buggy. I wanted to give it a try again a few days ago. It needs some outdated curl and some other libaries which do not exists on any up to date "secure" linux. So it won t work anyway

is it windows steam + wine?
or is it the gentoo provided steam?

steam has already runtime issues, I checked it a few days ago. there are several guys who had same issues. they do not fix it. they rely that you "OFFICALLY" run ubuntu 14.xx long term support. So basically you are not supported with gentoo anyway. When you read the replies there, you have to use ubuntu 14.xx, with outdated, insecure, crap ubuntu.... e.g. curl "3" outdated

is it just plain intel gpu notebook or combo of nvidia + intel gpu (you only noted intel gpu on top of hte page)

you should figure out, if its possible for those low powered intel gpus, to be able to provide fullscreen opengl game + external screen with ordinary x session. My nvidia gpu can not provide internal full screen opengl game (e.g. urbanterror) + external screen (vga i3wm session). It only works when the game is in window mode, else it was blank, recently, the game is now split over internal / external screen, misaligned.

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The root cause:


Maybe misconfigured X-server, not correctly provided edid, bad cable(i highly doubt), bad firmware of monitor / notebook (possible), not possible because of Limitations of the software and / or hardware (most likely because intel gpus are just for use cases like windows 95).

[WodkaBylaZaSlona]

I have to spend a lot of time to investigate all of this issues. And so far:
- most of them are kind of regression after sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.4.52

Using 4.4.52 kernel:
- external monitor works mostly fine (sometimes, after plug/unplug it cannot be recognized)
- I can use two displays without any issues (steam works well, steam games recognize a second display)
- unfortunately I cannot connect my TV (Samsung)

When I try to connect TV, there is "no signal", without any additional clues.

Using newer kernel then 4.4.52:
- even connection to an external monitor is "unstable. Every unplug and plug can result in "no signal".
- running steam cause "disconnection" of an external monitor. Even "xrandr" cause disconnection.
- TV does not work as well .

I've tried also sys-kernel/pf-sources. In case of that:
4.5_p4 works as good as 4.4.52-gentoo. 4.8_p8 work as bad as newer gentoo ones.

These problems seems to be related to intel video card drivers (Skylake - HD Graphics 530).

Any idea why newer kernels are worse? And how can I cannot my notebook to the TV?

[Roman_Gruber]

usually the X server talks a lot / dmesg

screens should provide EDID files / data ... check that. that info is needed to proper setup the screen

[WodkaBylaZaSlona]

[Roman_Gruber]

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/yakkety/man1/get-edid.1.html

[Roman_Gruber]

e.g. what i instantly found on my box