[SOLVED] External display turns off and back on all the time

[gwiesenekker]

Hi,

I am running Zorin OS on a Dell XPS 9510 laptop with an external ASUS MB16AC display connected to it through the display port.

Every now and then I had the annoying problem that the external display started to turn off after a couple of minutes and then back on after a couple of seconds (especially if you were not working 'inside' windows on the external display for a couple of minutes), causing all windows on the external display to move over to the laptop screen etc. I thought the problem was perhaps related to the NVIDIA driver, the display port cable, the external monitor, but could not find a root cause.
I just stumbled on a workaround (and if you know it, you can also find the workaround on the Ubuntu forums): just connect a headset to your laptop and the problem is gone!

Regards,
GW

[337harvey]

If you have your video card set to on demand this may contribute to the issue. Set it to quality (i believe, I'm doing this from memory) and that is always used. This should also help with the issue, since using headphones would have the gpu active.