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czk

Member

Registered: 2013-01-09

Posts: 6

Lenovo T430 with NVIDIA Optimus: inactive monitor

I have this oldish T430 laptop with 2 GPUs and an external monitor. Problem is that the external monitor display remains inactive, even though all the configuratoin pieces seem to be in place, Gnome detects the monitor fine and let's me configure it.

$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [NVS 5400M] (rev a1)

Using linux-hardened + nvidia-390xx-dkms:

$ uname -a
Linux laptop 4.16.15-1-hardened #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jun 12 02:43:57 CEST 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ pacman -Q | grep nvidia
nvidia-390xx-dkms 390.59-5
nvidia-390xx-settings 390.67-2
nvidia-390xx-utils 390.59-2

This is a Wayland Gnome session:

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP $XDG_SESSION_TYPE 
gnome wayland

Drivers load fine, NVIDIA attaches itself to the external monitor, both displays are detected:

$ lsmod | grep nvidia
nvidia_drm             49152  1
nvidia_modeset       1110016  1 nvidia_drm
nvidia              14381056  10 nvidia_modeset
drm_kms_helper        200704  2 i915,nvidia_drm
drm                   466944  15 i915,nvidia_drm,drm_kms_helper
ipmi_msghandler        53248  2 nvidia,ipmi_devintf

$ nvidia-xconfig --query-gpu-info
Number of GPUs: 1

GPU #0:
  Name      : NVS 5400M
  UUID      : GPU-c2b48823-ce38-127a-1357-1ce9880f6bab
  PCI BusID : PCI:1:0:0

  Number of Display Devices: 1

  Display Device 0 (TV-3):
      EDID Name             : Eizo EV2436W
      Minimum HorizSync     : 31.000 kHz
      Maximum HorizSync     : 76.000 kHz
      Minimum VertRefresh   : 59 Hz
      Maximum VertRefresh   : 61 Hz
      Maximum PixelClock    : 170.000 MHz
      Maximum Width         : 1920 pixels
      Maximum Height        : 1200 pixels
      Preferred Width       : 1920 pixels
      Preferred Height      : 1200 pixels
      Preferred VertRefresh : 60 Hz
      Physical Width        : 520 mm
      Physical Height       : 330 mm

$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3520 x 1200, maximum 8192 x 8192
XWAYLAND0 connected 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 310mm x 170mm
   1600x900      59.95*+
XWAYLAND1 connected 1920x1200+1600+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 520mm x 330mm
   1920x1200     59.88*+

Looks like the Intel GPU is attached to laptop display. No issues here. Gnome (3.28.2) is aware of both displays and let's me configure and arrange them in Settings -> Devices -> Displays. I can even move my cursor and drag windows over to the external monitor.

The only "small" problem is that the external monitor remains in power save, no display. No matter if connected with DP or DVI. The monitor and cables seem OK, as I was able to activate it using nouveau.

Does some kind soul here maybe knows how to activate the monitor with NVIDIA drivers in Optimus mode? I read about NVIDIA, Optimus, PRIME etc. on the Wiki but couldn't find a solution. Wayland is a new thing to me and I'm a bit at lost here. There's got to be something I left out.

Last edited by czk (2018-06-17 05:52:14)

RoundCube

Member

Registered: 2016-05-14

Posts: 42

Re: Lenovo T430 with NVIDIA Optimus: inactive monitor

Nividia is a bit lost with wayland too, you need nouveau drivers instead.

Askannz

Member

Registered: 2016-10-22

Posts: 36

Re: Lenovo T430 with NVIDIA Optimus: inactive monitor

Yeah that's a common problem with NVidia Optimus. Looks like your external monitor port is hardwired to the NVidia GPU, so the Intel card can't access it. I'm on the same boat.
You have three solutions :
- Do not use the Intel GPU and run the whole X session on NVidia (guidelines for X, don't know about Wayland though). NVidia will be able to acess the laptop display from the Intel card using the PRIME technology.
- Run X on Intel but use the open-source driver (nouveau) for NVidia. You will be able to acess the external output by setting up Reverse PRIME.
- Run X on intel and NVidia with the proprietary driver, and use intel-virtual-output.

I don't know how any of those solutions play with Wayland, though (I doubt intel-virtual-output would work for instance, since it's specific to X).

Last edited by Askannz (2018-06-18 02:18:45)