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bardo

Member

Registered: 2004-12-06

Posts: 96

Gnome 3 + nVidia proprietary driver + external monitor = blank screen

Hi guys,
I'm having a go at Gnome 3.2 and I pretty much like it, but I'm having a problem with my external monitor which makes it unusable for me. Every few seconds (~60-90, it keeps changing) the screen blanks. I don't experience the problem with the internal monitor, and I can bring it back to a working condition by going to tty1 and the back to tty7. Xorg continues to respond during the blank phase, it just doesn't show anything. The problem doesn't show up when using Xfce.

There is nothing in everything.log; Xorg.0.log, every time it "blank cycles", spits out a block of three lines. For example:

[  4481.155] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[  4481.158] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-1:1920x1080@1920x1080+0+0"
[  4481.219] (--) synaptics: bcm5974: touchpad found
[  4564.947] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[  4564.950] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-1:1920x1080@1920x1080+0+0"
[  4565.013] (--) synaptics: bcm5974: touchpad found
[  4652.915] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[  4652.919] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-1:1920x1080@1920x1080+0+0"
[  4652.981] (--) synaptics: bcm5974: touchpad found

Initially I thought it could have to do with the acpid daemon, so I tried stopping it. It just gave a warning it couldn't open the ACPI socket and went on spitting out only two lines. I tried modifying my Xorg config, but to no avail.

Since it only happens in Gnome, my guess is there's some kind of incompatibility between the driver/card (nVidia 9400M, this is a Macbook 5,1 - late 2008). I noticed that Gnome isn't able to detect the external monitor (which is connected through the laptop's Display Port by an HDMI adapter), and in fact I resorted to switch to the external monitor by the nvidia-settings interface. Gnome isn't even able to recognize the monitor after the switch has been done by nvidia-settings, it just shows "unknown". Same thing happens when using gnome-shell-extension-xrandr.

I was hit by the "Unable to apply stored configuration for monitors", so I disabled the xrandr plugin in gnome-settings-daemon as shown in the wiki. It solved the problem but the screen keeps blanking.

My current configuration (from /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf) is as follows:

Section "Device"
	Identifier "Nvidia 9400M"
	Driver "nvidia"
	VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
	Option "NoLogo" "1"
	#Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
	Option "TripleBuffer" "1"
	Option "DPMS" "1"
	Option "RegistryDwords" "PerfLevelSrc=0x3333"
	Option "Coolbits" "1"
	Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "1"
	Option "RandRRotation" "true"
	Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

A minimal configuration doesn't help either.

It would be enough for me to understand how to intercept Xorg's events, just to see what's happening. It would be a good start to debug this weird thing.

Thanks a lot for any help.

---

dreaming in digital / living in realtime / thinking in binary / talking in ip / welcome to our world

Strike0

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-09-05

Posts: 1,429

Re: Gnome 3 + nVidia proprietary driver + external monitor = blank screen

Hi,
I am by no means an expert to help you figure out that xorg interception, but I have a similar GPU (ION which is basically a 9400M) and managed to get it going well with letting the nvidia-settings create the xorg.conf alone. I tried out the options and twinview seems to be the choice.

What I don't see in your xorg.conf is the "screen" and "monitor" section. Does the "detect displays" work, when you got the external monitor plugged in? If it does not - showing "unknown display",  then you probably have to provide it with a monitor/screen sections or modify those created by nvidia-settings.

This is my etc/X!!/xorg.conf.d/10_monitor.conf, edited by deleting the non-relevant sections:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 280.13  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-05.nvidia.com)  Wed Jul 27 17:18:42 PDT 2011

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "LG Electronics E2360"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "ION"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-0: 1024x600 leftof"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

The internal display is not shown, but it still works. I can hotplug the HDMI monitor (LG) and it works very swift actually.
I dont have a 20-nvidia.conf btw. Its all in the conf above.