So this is a bit of a weird one. I have been using Zorin 17 Pro for a year now with 3 monitors. Haven't had any issues beyond the initial setup. After this latest update now the system boots normally, but when I start applications dealing with video (Steam, Android Studio, Kodi, Browser) all three displays reset and only two come back.
Going into settings, the system still sees all three monitors but my main monitor is disabled. I can re-enable it, but I have also had the settings app starting cause the issue.
I found the issue After upgrade Nvidia driver wont install and can only use 1 monitor which seemed to be related and reinstalled the nvidia drivers which loaded without issue, but issue is still occurring.
Any suggestions?
Should also mention that prior to the update I was running the Nvidia 560 proprietary driver. I have also tried switching to the 565 and 570 with no effect and have switched back to the 560 until I can sort this out.
Is this a desktop PC or a notebook computer?
If Notebook computer, try disabling the power management that may interfere:
xset -dpms
Have you tried booting into the Earlier kernel? You can check which you are currently on with
uname -r
From the grub menu, you can select Advanced Options for Zorin and then select the earlier kernel to boot from and test.
The Nvidia 4090 is notorious for glitchy behavior.
Which driver are you using?
nvidia-smi
It is a PC. I have not tried booting into an earlier kernel, as when I reviewed the updates it didn't seem to include any kernel updates. Also anytime I have tried to boot from an earlier kernel it has seemed to cause more issues than it solved, though I haven't tried it since I initially got the three monitors to work.
uname -r provides:
6.8.0-52-generic
nvidia-smi provides:
Fri Mar 21 13:55:07 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 560.35.03 Driver Version: 560.35.03 CUDA Version: 12.6 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | Off |
| 0% 57C P8 27W / 450W | 809MiB / 24564MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 2886 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 432MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 3077 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 46MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 3904 G ...erProcess --variations-seed-version 73MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 10401 G ...local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam 40MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 10834 G ./steamwebhelper 20MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 10884 G ....local/share/Steam/logs/cef_log.txt 20MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 22641 G ...f2dd75e8be37bc43f03ace8b2228d90641e 124MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Did You tried a Reinstall of the Driver? To be more precise: I mean delete the Driver first and then install it again.
Let's try Nvidia 570 driver
sudo apt remove --purge '^nvidia-.*'
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update && sudo apt install nvidia-driver-570 nvidia-dkms-570
You may want the latest mesa upgrades:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
I followed the steps provided by Aravisian in After upgrade Nvidia driver wont install and can only use 1 monitor for the 560 driver. About to follow their suggestion for 570.
I have followed the steps provided. I'm about to reboot but before I start each of the steps above had the following at the end of the process:
W: GPG error: https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian stable InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 23E7166788B63E1E
E: The repository 'https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian stable InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
That is not related, but you should be able to use
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
to set that right.
After reboot, monitors identifiers reset so had to reorganize. I have run through all of the applications that caused the issue with it not reoccurring. I haven't been able to start the Android emulator I was working on but if that wouldn't be part of this topic. Looks like I'm back up. Thanks for the quick support!
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As an update, was noticing some stuttering with the GUI and upon investigation noticed that the system is now using the Mesa intel graphics vice the nvidia 570 driver.
Issue returns if I attempt to use the nvidia driver, but is fine if using intel.
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So, back to square one, then.
The Nvidia card is doing the same, whether on 560 driver or 570.
Are you using Display Port connections or HDMI?
If Display Port (DP), the 4090 is known to be... picky... about which DP cable is used.
Trying a different (cough... expensive) cable or Just trying a different Cable Port sometimes resolves its rejection of the cable or monitor.
I find the idea of the cables being the issue problematic, since you say it worked before a system update... But it is possible.
Other physical causes: The monitor has EDID caches, that needed to be cleared. This is done by unplugging the affected monitors for at least ten minutes.
We can check for PCIe errors:
dmesg | grep -i nvidia
On to software:
You can check if a user configuration is causing monitor issues. If you can launch a session as another user to test the situation...
Or
Backup your user configurations (This will reset all your configurations to default):
mv ~/.config ~/.config-bak
Then restart the session and test. (You can partially restore the backup by entering ~/.config-bak and selecting the safe files you want to keep and moving them to ~/.config or fully restore it with
mv ~/.config-bak ~/.config
I'm with you on it being a cable issue. The monitor that gets disabled is an HDMI running through a into a DP port via a converter.
I ran the dmesg|grep command and got the following:
malagon@Malagon:~$ sudo dmesg|grep -i nvidia
[sudo] password for malagon:
[ 24.895305] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card3/input22
[ 25.106546] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 25.106555] nvidia: module license taints kernel.
[ 25.158783] nvidia-nvlink: Nvlink Core is being initialized, major device number 509
[ 25.159889] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: VGA decodes changed: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
[ 25.203534] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=7 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card3/input23
[ 25.204149] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 570.124.04 Tue Feb 25 04:12:12 UTC 2025
[ 25.217415] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=8 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card3/input24
[ 25.224260] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=9 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card3/input25
[ 25.236397] nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms 570.124.04 Tue Feb 25 03:39:21 UTC 2025
[ 25.238739] [drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00000100] Loading driver
[ 27.586262] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20160202 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 2
[ 27.600677] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: deactivate vga console
[ 28.173930] fbcon: nvidia-drmdrmfb (fb0) is primary device
[ 28.173932] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] fb0: nvidia-drmdrmfb frame buffer device
[ 28.192580] nvidia_uvm: module uses symbols nvUvmInterfaceDisableAccessCntr from proprietary module nvidia, inheriting taint.
[ 28.228996] nvidia-uvm: Loaded the UVM driver, major device number 507.
[ 104.326975] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: Unable to read EDID for display device SAMSUNG (DP-3)
[ 105.407811] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: Unable to read EDID for display device DP-3
[ 167.593637] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: Unable to read EDID for display device SAMSUNG (DP-3)
[ 170.718994] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: Unable to read EDID for display device SAMSUNG (DP-3)
NVRM: make sure that this kernel module and all NVIDIA driver
I ran it while still having the Intel driver active, but the warnings do correspond to the monitor in question.
Ohhh... Nvidia really does not like those...
I did similar (Working with what I had) and ended up just Buying The Right Cables for each monitor and that solved pretty much every issue. That was.... well... Over two years ago, now.
This looks bad, but can be ignored. It is just because the Nvidia driver is Proprietary.
But this:
A DP Cable issue - or using HDMI through a converter, can inhibit the EDID being sent to the computer.
Honestly, this is the first thing I would focus on...
If the converter is a passive adapter, it might not support the full resolution/refresh rate the monitor expects. It may not be supplying enough power.
Or it may be that the signal from HDMI is being garbled or lost converting to the DP output.
I shut down and swapped the monitor in question to the other HDMI port. Once booted verified that the Nvidia 570 driver was loaded. That cleared the EDID errors, and that seems to have solved it. There was some GUI stuttering when the system was still loading, but it's gone away now.Will just need to invest in a DP cable for the other converter.
