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I have a triple monitor setup and it works very well with 13.10. However, I have some problems with the way Ubuntu moves windows around when turning off a monitor.

For instance, when I want to watch a movie I only want to use one monitor. However, when I turn off the other screens, the windows located on these will all move to the one monitor I use for a movie.

If I turn on the screens again the windows move back but not always to the same place and it's still kind of a hassle to suddenly have a huge bunch of windows pile up on the monitor you were just starting a movie on. It also means that my screens will blank out for 3 seconds, every time I turn one of the monitors on or off - probably to adjust X/compiz, I guess?

I know this is probably intended behavior, since it would make a lot of sense with a laptop setup. But with a triple monitor desktop setup, I really just want my windows to stay where they are, screens off or not. If I need whatever was on them, I'll just turn them on. Just some way to blank them would be nice, too.

Is there any way to turn off this feature? For the record, I'm running the NVIDIA proprietary driver.

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  • How are you "turning the screens off" exactly? If you just turn the power off on the monitor, nothing will happen. If you turn them off in the configuration, then those screens no longer exist according to the configuration, and it's the same as unplugging them from the computer.
    – dobey
    Mar 5, 2014 at 19:21
  • I turn them off on the monitor power button. I don't know if perhaps my monitors are special then? Mar 5, 2014 at 21:50
  • I don't know. It could be the monitors or the drivers. My Samsung LCDs connected to my Intel i7 with DVI don't to this when I turn them off. Nor did it happen with the Nvidia card I used to have, with the noveau drivers.
    – dobey
    Mar 5, 2014 at 22:01
  • Hmm, weird. Perhaps my monitors are special. :/ Thanks for the time though. :) Mar 17, 2014 at 17:25
  • Re-placing windows is not happening to me on Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS (Dell XPS 13, display port to HDMI adapter, LG Flatron M2380D-PZ detected as Goldstar Company LTD 23"). All windows end up on the primary monitor (external in my case) when reattaching the monitor or switching the notebook off and on again. The behavior is identical to the description of the linked question.
    – Peterino
    Nov 15, 2015 at 14:31

1 Answer 1

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This is the most common with HDMI and display port but some DVI and VGA monitors can do it too I'm told. DVI is hit and miss and I've never personally encountered a VGA one that does this.

When you power off the monitor it ceases to be communicating with the computer. On HDMI at least the easiest workaround I found was to cover pin 19 with a piece of tape there is a similar pin(unsure off the number) for displayport although for mini displayport it gets a bit small to get the tape in without blocking other pins.

If you have the problem with DVI or VGA connections there are pins you can break off on the cable (again not sure which offhand). I discovered this on Windows admittedly so I may be wrong but the linux machine connects by VGA to a KVM so haven't had a problem with it

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