Arch Linux

arete

Member

Registered: 2025-03-31

Posts: 2

Lenovo X1 Gen 12 HDMI Random Black Screens constatly

I'm experiencing random black screens (display disconnects) when using an external monitor via HDMI on my Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 12 (Intel Core Ultra 5 125U, Intel Meteor Lake graphics). The issue occurs under Arch Linux with i3wm and Xorg.
When using the laptop connected to an external monitor, the external monitor randomly goes black for a few seconds constantly. It turns impossible to get any work done.
The laptop works fine on its own display, the issue only manifests with HDMI. The laptop is completely new.

Symptoms:
- External monitor randomly goes black for varying durations (sometimes long enough to trigger monitor sleep).
- Issue is 100% reproducible when idle, but never occurs when playing a YouTube video with sound (the sound must be on in the YouTube video, can't be muted; but it can be muted on the system).
- No relevant errors in dmesg, journalctl, or Xorg logs.
- Tried multiple monitors, HDMI cables and laptops - problem persists only with this laptop.
- The issue does not appear to happen when not logged in (e.g. in ly display manager)
- I am using an HDMI to HDMI cable, I have not tested an USB-C to HDMI yet

Troubleshooting attempted:
I've tried some troubleshooting, according to the wiki, like disabling DPMS, Setting `power_save=0` or force GPU power control to "on", but no luck.

In relation to kernel/drivers, I am using kernel 6.13.7-arch1-1 with i915 driver. No custom i915.conf or Xorg configuration (no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf).

The correlation with audio playback (YouTube) suggests a power-saving interaction, but I was unable to find any solution.
Obviously Lenovo didn't offer much help, they just wanted to take the laptop and asked me to back up everything. I doubt they would provide much Arch support, and I had too much work to get done to give them the laptop at the moment.

System details:
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 125U (Meteor Lake)
- GPU: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P [Intel Graphics] (rev 08)
- Driver: i915 (from lsmod)
- WM: i3 (Xorg) (I have tried Wayland but the rendering was horrible and I think the issue still persisted)

Last edited by arete (2025-03-31 16:50:15)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,318

Re: Lenovo X1 Gen 12 HDMI Random Black Screens constatly

Make sure xf86-video-intel is not installed should that be the case. Generally symptoms are somewhat prone for bad cables/potentially signal interference (how far away from the screen is your phone? Can you still repro if it's off/nowhere near the screen)?

arete

Member

Registered: 2025-03-31

Posts: 2

Re: Lenovo X1 Gen 12 HDMI Random Black Screens constatly

Make sure xf86-video-intel is not installed should that be the case. Generally symptoms are somewhat prone for bad cables/potentially signal interference (how far away from the screen is your phone? Can you still repro if it's off/nowhere near the screen)?

Thanks for your reply.
xf86-video-intel wasn't and is not installed.
I doubt it's the cables fault, I have tried a few of them. And the issue is still happens with my phone off/nowhere near the screen