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Hello,
Have been using Arch for a few months and have been loving it!
However, I have been facing some issues regarding connecting multiple monitors to a laptop.
Setup:
I am using a laptop with an Ivy Bridge processor and an external graphics card (gtx 660m) which used to run Optimus on Windows. I don't really need the graphics horsepower any more, so I have not installed Nvidia drivers. So I should be running just the Intel integrated graphics.
I have been using the laptop with an external display connected to the HDMI. So with 2 monitors (the integrated laptop display, one monitor connected to the HDMI port), no problems at all.
I am using KDE, with no display managers enabled.
And the problem starts when I try to connect a 3rd monitor (second external monitor).
Issue:
I got another monitor as a gift, and have tried to connect it through the VGA port. So that would make 3 monitors in total. (laptop display, HDMI monitor, VGA monitor)
When I connect the VGA monitor AFTER having logged in and having X/KDE loaded (so the system will boot and be logged in with only 2 monitors connected), there doesn't seem to be any issues at all - everything just works, or at least it seems like it.
However, when I try to boot with 3 monitors (laptop display, HDMI, VGA) connected, the screen would black out some time before the stage where it needs to show the login console.
System seems to be responding, but just no output on any of the displays. I type in my user name and my password, and after waiting some time, KDE loads and I can see that I have logged in.
The display/monitor settings don't seem to be persistent (the monitors are shown to be overlapping even though I have set it not to behave like that in the previous boot), but I think that can be solved later.
So before login/before X is loaded, it just doesn't work with 3 monitors connected.
However, when I disconnect the VGA at the stage where the screen shows nothing (so presumably the login prompt without a display manager), the screen comes back up normally just like the output I had when I only had 2 monitors (laptop display and HDMI) connected.
Things I have done/tried:
I have enabled early KMS start by adding intel_agp and i915 to mkinitcpio.conf (this is something I have done way before trying to connect the second monitor, I did it to solve garbled text showing up while booting up)
I have tried disabling early KMS start, but the results are the same. (The only difference is that the timing at which the screen goes black is a little bit later)
Enabling nomodeset makes me unable to use X.
I'm guessing the problem isn't with X, but I really can't pinpoint where the problem is...
If anyone could offer insight into what might be causing this/what logs I should be looking at /etc, I would really appreciate it.
Also, how does arch? drivers? choose which monitor to display the console on before X is loaded?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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