Blank screen when switching HDMI inputs

Hardware Support
1

This has been annoying me for some time and I want to try and fix it.

I'm running Zorin 17.3 on an Asus mini-PC. The PC is connected to a Samsung monitor via HDMI, and the monitor is shared with a Mac Mini. When I switch inputs away from the Asus (on HDMI2) to the Mac Mini (on HDMI1), it works fine. When I try to switch back to the Asus, I get a blank screen. Nothing works to trigger a response. I have to pull the power cable on the Asus and plug it back in again to get any video.

Settings -> About says "llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)"

sudo lshw -C video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       logical name: /dev/fb0
       version: 00
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list fb
       configuration: depth=32 latency=0 mode=1920x1080 resolution=1920,1080 visual=truecolor xres=1920 yres=1080
       resources: iomemory:600-5ff iomemory:400-3ff memory:60e7000000-60e7ffffff memory:4000000000-400fffffff ioport:4000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff memory:60e0000000-60e6ffffff memory:6000000000-60dfffffff

I have Screen Blank and Automatic Suspend in Settings set to "Never".

I'm unsure what the actual physical video card is ... possibly nVidia.

Anything I can check that will fix this? It's a bit worrying having to constantly pull the power plug just to get video back.

2

Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that with the Terminal Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Should it run in Waylan, I would suggest to switch to Xorg. to do that, go to the Login Screen. Click there on Your Profile so that the Password Field appears. When it is appeared, You should see a Gear Icon in the bottom right Corner. Click on it and choose the Option ''Zorin Desktop on Xorg'' and then log in and test it.

When Your posted Output is complete, You seem to have an Intel Graphics, maybe integrated Graphics Unit in the CPU. When You go to the ''Additional Drivers'' Tab in Software & Updates are there any Nvidia Drivers offered?

3

XDG_SESSION_TYPE says x11.

4

And did You checked for the Nvidia Drivers?

5

I did, yes, and it does appear to be integrated Intel drivers so I was wrong in my assumption. Apologies. The PC spec states Intel® UHD Graphics (N97).

No additional drivers were listed for this.

6

An additional data point. I had to add nomodeset to grub as Zorin was constantly failing to show any video during boot unless I went into recovery mode and booted from there. However that shouldn't affect video behaviour once the OS has fully booted and it has switched to its own drivers.

I can try some newer drivers if I knew which ones.

7

This may be causing the current issue. Can you please remove the nomodeset parameter and instead add i915.enable_dc=0 and i915.enable_psr=0

It will look like
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.enable_dc=0 i915.enable_psr=0"

Tap ctl+o to overwrite, enter key to save current config, then ctl+x to eXit the editor.
Run

sudo update-grub

Reboot and test...

1 Like
8

No luck, unfortunately. I had to revert that change as it stopped any video from appearing after the OS had loaded after selecting "Zorin" from Grub.

It seems to me that the OS is detecting a lack of signal from the monitor and disables video, but it fails to detect when the monitor signal resumes. It could be the cable, but I've swapped cables and no difference. It may be the monitor itself but the Mac mini happily restores video when I switch the input back to it.

I'll see if I can source another monitor but this one is a very recent Samsung 32" (model U32J59x) so it ought to work. I note that Zorin doesn't seem able to detect the monitor model whereas macOS does. I wonder if that might be relevant?