External display stays in power save mode in GNOME40 (black display)

Q&A
1

Hi,

I noticed that my external monitor enters and stays in power save mode immediately after system start (or in other words it does not display anything at all from the very start) in various Linux distributions with GNOME40 i.e. Fedora 34 or Clear Linux when it is connected by DisplayPort. I would like to ask for the advice as I would be interested in installing Clear Linux for coding and educational purposes on my MS Surface Pro 2 which I am using mostly to access cloud computers.

In GNOME settings I see two displays, my Surface display and DELL U3415W external monitor. In Gnome Settings on my Surface display, I have the ability to set resolution and refresh rate on both displays, however DELL as I mentioned stays black when connected through DisplayPort. When I connect this monitor through “DisplayPort to HDMI adapter”, the monitor wakes up and displays 3440x1440 but with only 29.99 refresh rate. When I connect DisplayPort cable again, it becames black. On Ubuntu 20.04 the monitor does not have any problems to work with DisplayPort at 60 refresh rate nor on Windows 10.

Below please find some xrandr info:

######################################
CONNECTED miniDP
######################################
clrlinux@clr-live~ $ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 5360 x 1440, maximum 16384 x 16384
eDP-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 235mm x 132mm
1920x1080 59.97*+ 59.97 59.96 59.93
1680x1050 59.95 59.88
[…]
320x180 59.84 59.32
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1-8 connected 3440x1440+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 798mm x 335mm
3440x1440 59.97*+ 49.99
2560x1440 59.95
[…]
720x400 70.08
DP-1-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

####################################
CONNECTED miniDP to HDMI APAPTER
####################################
clrlinux@clr-live~ $ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3440 x 2520, maximum 16384 x 16384
eDP-1 connected 1920x1080+779+1440 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 235mm x 132mm
1920x1080 59.97*+ 59.97 59.96 59.93
1680x1050 59.95 59.88
[…]
320x180 59.84 59.32
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-1 connected primary 3440x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 798mm x 335mm
3440x1440 29.99*
1720x1440 60.00
[…]
720x400 70.08

Is there anything that I can do to make the DisplayPort connection work at usual 60 refresh rate or to make connection through HDMI at 60. I doubt the HDMI 60 possible however I decided to ask about it as well. My priority is direct DisplayPort connection.

Thank you.

2

Guys,

I also posted this question at gnome discourse External monitor stays in power save mode in GNOME40 (black display) - Desktop - GNOME Discourse

I understand that this is not a question about an abstraction layer over a cluster of virtual or physical machines related to kubernetes orchestration nor it is about profilling DCP++ FPGA kernel code on Intel hardware however I would really appreciate some advice from the community as my Linux knowledge is rather basic. This is really a barrier that I would like to overcome and install Clear Linux on my computer as soon as possible.

Many thanks in advance.

3

Hi @snumber.

I understand that you haven’t installed Clear Linux yet. If that’s the case, then you can try the live desktop without installing it and see if you have the same issue on Clear Linux.