HDMI port not being detected on Dell Inspiron 3552 Zorin Lite 17

General Help
1

To further my plans to pinch my mother's more capable HP Core i5 laptop, I need to be able to play video through a Sony Bravia TV. When I plug the HDMI cable into the Dell laptop rather than the HP laptop we currently use the TV is not detected. I get the same when I've tried plugging a Panasonic TV into the Dell. I've looked on the forum and I can confirm that Secure Boot is disabled. The output from xrandr is as follows:

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 4096 x 4096
None-1 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1366x768 60.00*+

'None-1' is strangely named, but is the only window in 'Display'. I have spent quite a lot of time trawling the web, and whilst this is a theme I haven't found any useful tips beyond disabling secure boot. The USB ports seem to work as expected.

2

I read that
HP Laptop>HDMI-HDMI>Sony TV OK
Dell Laptop>HDMI-HDMI>Sony TV FAIL
Dell Laptop>HDMI-HDMI>Panasonic TV FAIL
that using the same HDMI cable and the same way round?

Do you have another HDMI cable you can try?

Is there a HDMI switch or ext monitor keyboard switch on the Dell that is set=OFF.
See this: My second monitor is not getting detected - #12 by citfta

What model is the Dell Laptop? Dell Inspiron 3552 , HDMI version 1.4a

3

There is an HDMI switching device on the Sony TV, but not on the Panasonic - that has its own cable without switching as that auto detects. There is indeed an ext. monitor switch on the Dell (F8), but that brings up the 'Display' GUI on Zorin Lite (XFCE) rather than doing anything apparently useful. Given that both TVs (and cabling) work with the HP laptop the problem seems to be the Dell laptop.

Other instances of HDMI ports not working have been to do with Nvidia graphics cards, and I'm thinking that the Celeron on-board graphics might be the issue here.

4

I don't understand what you mean by that.

5

The same 'Display' screen that you get to via the Zorin Lite menu. It's where you'd organise the layout of multiple screens.

6

Are you pressing Fn+F8 together?
That combo should toggle through external>internal>both display use.

I read some Inspiron's use Fn+F1 for ext monitor switch. Check what is written on the function keys on your Dell.

7

Thanks for reply. Fn+F8 does nothing, Fn+F1 gives me Brave help. The F8 key does have a little icon that could be a laptop and external monitor, and it's the key for the job that I identified from the user manual.
In hindsight I should have tried the HDMI port when it was still a cheap Win10 laptop - I'll bet it worked!

8

How long are the HDMI Cables and are these HDMI2.0 or higher? The same for the HDMI Ports.

9

The Panasonic TV is a TX-24DS500B from around 2018 - the specs just say HDMI. It's the same age as the Dell Laptop (HDMI 1.4a). I've tried a different short HDMI lead and a 1.5m lead that my son says is latest HDMI spec.

Also got 'no signal' when plugged into an LG monitor.

10

Dell Inspiron 3552 does not have HDMI2.0 ports, from spec I found for it online.

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11

Is it possible that this is an Ubuntu/Debian kernel issue and I'd be better off with an Arch Distro like CachyOS or Endeavour? Or is this just a rubbish laptop?

12

You can try these Distros if You want. When they make it work, why not.

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