Arch Linux

meanerelk

Member

Registered: 2009-02-20

Posts: 4

Blank monitor after shutting down Arch

I'm dual booting Arch and Windows XP using grub. I know it's set up correctly because I can boot into either one.

The problem is if I shut down from Arch. I halt the system using:

sudo halt

Everything shuts down as normal, but then I cannot start the computer again because the screen stays completely blank. The monitor gets no signal. I can hear the hard drive working, so I think the boot process is still working correctly, but it's impossible to tell.

Usually the monitor will randomly start working again if I hard reboot a few times, but now I just did it like 20 times in a row and still no signal.

I'm almost positive this is due to booting into Arch, because this computer runs XP 90% of the time, and it never has problems shutting down and booting up. If I boot into Arch once, this happens.

Any suggestions would be very welcome, because I have no idea what could be causing this.

hollywoodb

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2003-10-03

Posts: 39

Re: Blank monitor after shutting down Arch

I had this problem with a display that wouldn't wake up from a suspend/hibernate state.  I couldn't bring it back with vbetool or xset.  I'd have to reboot continuously until the display decided it felt like waking up again.

A couple things I would try:
1) try `shutdown -h now` instead of `halt`, although I'd be surprised if there were any difference
2) try adding "acpi=off" to the Arch kernel line in grub.
3) Try turning the display off before shutting down Arch and perhaps it won't receive any calls that cause it to go blank.

meanerelk

Member

Registered: 2009-02-20

Posts: 4

Re: Blank monitor after shutting down Arch

hollywoodb,

Thanks for the reply. I'll try all of those suggestions, if only I could get the #$@#$ thing to work.

I've noticed that if I unplug the VGA cable and plug it back in before booting, I at least see the POST, but then it goes blank again right afterwards. Subsequent boots remain completely blank --- not even a POST --- unless I repeat the process of unplugging and replugging.

Seems like pretty strange behaviour. Does it mean anything to you?

meanerelk

Member

Registered: 2009-02-20

Posts: 4

Re: Blank monitor after shutting down Arch

Well I switched monitors with another computer, and the new one worked. Also, the old one still refuses to turn on. I think maybe it's a hardware issue.