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Equipment:

  • 1x Laptop (Gigabyte U24F) with VGA and HDMI output options for additional monitors with dual boot Win7 and Fedora
  • 2x Different monitors with only DVI input. Both DVI-D
  • 1x HDMI(m) to DVI-D(f) converter with a DVI-D cable attached
  • 1x HDMI to DVI-D dual link cable

Problem:

When using any combination of these screens and conversion methods, Windows is unable to detect the monitor. The monitor can tell it is connected to something as it turns off the self test feature, but for some reason Windows has no idea about the screen.

It doesn't appear in the Display -> Screen Resolution settings at all.

If I use the 'Detect' button in the screen resolution settings, it lists two 'Another display not detected' screens. One for the NVidia card, giving only the option for VGA. The other is for the Intel HD, giving the options for VGA output and 'Mobile PC Display'. If I tell it to try to connect anyway, nothing displays on the monitor.

When using Fedora however, any combination of the screens and converters works fine. I'm currently using the nouveau drivers for linux.

In addition, if I use an HDMI to HDMI cable to connect to yet another display, that works fine in Windows and Linux.

I've done a fair bit of searching online, but most problems that come up are about people who used to have it working on Win7 but now it doesn't on Win10.

Additional Info:

  • My laptop has both onboard graphics (Intel HD Graphics 4400) and Nvidia (GT 750M). Both drivers are fully up to date.
Kelly Bang
  • 133

1 Answers1

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For sure, almost one year passed after this question and probably this problem is solved, but recently I ran with the same issue and decided to share experience.

I think HDMI communication through Linux and Windows is slightly different, as HDMI has copy protection and requires a handshake with receiver hardware. For example, if we play protected content on a DVD player and sending it to display it is OK but if the receiver is a media recorder, then the player shouldn't transfer to protect intellectual property.

I didn't check and can't be confident but as I see HDMI handshake through Linux is a bit more tolerant. In my case, it was a damaged cable, which was working on Linux well (After attaching to laptop second screen was showing clean image 10 times out of 10 tries). On Windows, it wasn't working at all. I played with cable position over 30 minutes and finally got the image on the screen (After every change of a position it requires to wait ~3 seconds to allow devices handshake). So, this was a sign, cable was damaged. Replacing the old one solved the problem.

zviad
  • 101