[arrandale] Lenovo U460 HDMI doesn't work

[Mike McNally]

Binary package hint: xorg

New Lenovo U460 laptop dual-booting with factory-installed Windows 7 (64 bit). When a monitor is connected via HDMI under Windows, it works fine. Under Lucid, nothing happens at all. xrandr reports only the laptop display (ie "Screen 0").

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.41-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Aug 26 09:36:51 2010
DkmsStatus:

InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.1)
MachineType: LENOVO 0877
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=/dev/mapper/sda7_crypt ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 05/31/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 31CN23WW(V1.04)
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: Base Board Product Name
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Base Board Version
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Chassis Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacturer
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr31CN23WW(V1.04):bd05/31/2010:svnLENOVO:pn0877:pvrIdeaPadU460:rvnLENOVO:rnBaseBoardProductName:rvrBaseBoardVersion:cvnChassisManufacturer:ct10:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: 0877
dmi.product.version: IdeaPad U460
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.32-24-generic

[lspci]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 02)
     Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:395a]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation Device [10de:0a6e] (rev a2)
     Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:395a]

[Mike McNally (emmecinque)]

Update

Now running Natty, I again attempted to get an external monitor working via the HDMI port. The "nvidia-settings" tool, it turns out, *does* recognize the external monitor. After some time tinkering with the system, I realized that the problem may be completely different. Specifically, what appears to be wrong is that the keyboard "Fn" key combination for the "switch video mode" key (Fn + F3, on the U460) is not handled correctly by the udev keyboard mechanism (or by something; I'm no expert). With the "/lib/udev/keymap" utility, I was able to see that pressing that key combination results in *two* keycodes: one, 0xDB, interpreted as "leftmeta", and a second, 0x19, interpreted as "p". Holding down "Fn" and repeatedly pressing "F3" results in just one 0xDB at the beginning and then a separate lower-case "p" for each subsequent keypress.

I tried to follow the udev keyboard troubleshooting guide, but nothing I tried made the system respond with anything different.

I then found a tool called "disper" (not in the Ubuntu repositories), which allows for screen switching with the NVidia drivers, and with that tool I was successful in getting the laptop to drive the external monitor.

Therefore, I don't consider this a problem with the display subsystem at all, at least not in Natty.

Note that I'm running the laptop with its BIOS set up to force the NVidia hardware and bypass the Intel hardware.

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

Your laptop is known as a hybrid machine with two GPUs. The internal display (and typically VGA) is connected to the weaker integrated GPU, whereas the HDMI is connected to the discrete GPU. We are only just beginning to catch up with Windows in enabling multi-GPU / multi-head configurations - in the meantime you have to either make a choice about which GPU to use, or to use something like bumblebee.

Note that in raring, we have the initial enabling of multi-GPU support.