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I know there are a couple of threads about this already, but no solution worked for me.

I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu MATE 16.04 on a new notebook with a Skylake chipset and a GTX 965M Refresh. Everything went surprisingly well until I wanted to replace my current workstation, which includes plugging in an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Whenever I plug in the HDMI of the external monitor, the laptop screen turns black and the external monitor doesn't get any signal either. When I unplug the HDMI again, the laptop screen stays black and I have to do a hard reset. CTRL+ALT+F1 doesn't get me a picture and the laptop FN key combinations to switch monitors or turn the display on/off also don't do anything. Same happens when I boot with the external monitor plugged in - it just all goes dark after GRUB.

I tried this with:

  • Kernel 4.4.0 + Nouveau
  • Kernel 4.4.39 + Nouveau
  • Kernel 4.8.x + Nouveau

(I didn't get NVIDIA drivers working yet)

Secure boot and Onboard Intel video card is both disabled..

I'm kinda out of ideas, because I can't even debug this while the external monitor is plugged in.

I don't work with desktop distros too much, I just use them for work. So if anyone could point me into a direction where/how to debug this, it would be great. I pretty much excluded video drivers and kernel as a source of the issue already, so I'm not sure what else to do.

I tried xorg-edgers PPA, but same issue with the more recent packages from there.

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  • Have you tried turning the laptop on with the monitors connected (ie: not hot-plug them while the laptop is running)? Sometimes it makes it easier to setup and figure out where there might be an issue.
    – earthmeLon
    Dec 31, 2016 at 18:29
  • Yes, I mentioned that I tried that. Both screens turn black instantly after selecting a kernel in GRUB.
    – John Wayne
    Dec 31, 2016 at 18:55
  • Have you re-generated a new xorg.conf file for the new monitors? I believe that for NVIDIA it would be gksudo nvidia-xconfig. Move your old xorg.conf (backup) so it knows to create a new file. Not sure this is possible if everything is turning black on you, however.
    – earthmeLon
    Dec 31, 2016 at 19:03
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    Yeah, I did generate a xorg.conf with nvidia-xconfig. However I just realized that the NVIDIA drivers never actually got loaded - I thought they were but DKMS module was missing which was the sole reason I got one of the kernel to boot with nvidia drivers installed. So trying to solve this first: askubuntu.com/questions/866568/…
    – John Wayne
    Dec 31, 2016 at 19:16

3 Answers 3

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I had a similar issue. I have fixed it myself using this method.

System won't boot up properly - screens turning off and on. Only when second monitor is plugged in

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Solution: It works with NVIDIA drivers loaded instead of Nouveau or other open drivers. I couldn't get them loaded on my Ubuntu MATE installation however, which is why I moved to Manjaro KDE by now, where everything works out of the box, including NVIDIA drivers or course. No regrets (so far).

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  • What kernel are you using now? (I'm having similar issues on Kubuntu 16.04, with kernel 4.4.0-*) Jan 4, 2017 at 11:33
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    I use Manjaro KDE with kernel 4.8.15. The issue isn't related to the kernel version, or at least it wasn't in my case. Check this out if you can't get your NVIDIA drivers to load: askubuntu.com/questions/762254/… .. Recent NVIDIA cards don't seem to properly work with stock kernel drivers. You can try kernel 4.8.15 too, it was mostly stable on my Ubuntu MATE install.
    – John Wayne
    Jan 5, 2017 at 12:35
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For Ubuntu Mate 16.04 or Ubuntu in general you can use this to install nvidia drivers

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa sudo apt update sudo apt-get install nvidia-XXX*

Note: XXX -> you can get the exact version here

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