No display for Thinkpad X120e

raynach · 2012-08-09 14:24:36

Hi Arch folks,

I'm having an issue with my Thinkpad X120e's display. The video card is ATI Radeon HD 6310, and I've been using the open-source ATI drivers with relative ease. I have nothing defined in the xorg.conf files that pertain to the display - all of it relates to input devices and synaptics.

I was actually having a similar problem when I was using Ubuntu, and so I switched to Arch. While the problem wasn't resolved immediately, there was some update that allowed me to use the display like normal plus a monitor hooked up via VGA. However, there has since been another update which has messed up the display again.

The laptop display isn't coming up with xrandr -q:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1680 x 1050, maximum 8192 x 8192
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VGA-0 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 494mm x 320mm
   1680x1050      59.9*+
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0  
   720x400        70.1

I made sure that the boot display device is the native display, and have tried booting with and without the external monitor connected to no avail.

Could really use help here! Thanks in advance.

der_joachim · 2012-08-12 07:01:41

Maybe this wiki page can help you along.

cfr · 2012-08-14 01:26:58

That wiki page is quite old (2009) so I'm not sure how much help it will be now. For example, I'm pretty sure that ibm_acpi is now thinkpad_acpi (unless there is also an ibm_acpi) and there have been a lot of changes to the intel driver. (I know the OP isn't using intel but it seems not implausible there may have been significant changes to other video drivers, too - I just happen to be using intel/nouveau so only know about those.)

So if you boot without the external connected, you just get no display? Two rather obvious things:
- have you checked your bios settings? (There's an option in mine for default display.)
EDIT: I see you've checked the laptop display is the boot display. Is that what you meant?
- are you sure that the video driver etc. is correctly installed and so on?
- have you checked the logs?
- is your bios up to date?
- are you *positive* there's nothing about this in xorg.conf or an xorg.conf fragment?

I get weird problems with display and external monitors (and the microphone but that's another issue) but only after connecting an external. I've never tried booting with one attached. I've never (touch wood) had the laptop display not work on boot.

If you boot with nothing attached, what happens exactly? Does the display never work or...?

What happens if you boot to run level 3?

Does it work if you boot with a live cd/usb key?

Last edited by cfr (2012-08-14 01:35:21)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-09 14:24:36

No display for Thinkpad X120e

#2 2012-08-12 07:01:41

Re: No display for Thinkpad X120e

#3 2012-08-14 01:26:58

Re: No display for Thinkpad X120e

Board footer