No signal from DVI port

[Mangovnik]

tl;dr: I have installed PopOS on my machine and my DVI port stopped working.

Set up:

    CPU: AMD FX-8350
    GPU: MSI AMD R9 380 4G (display port, hdmi, 2x DVI - I use DVI only in the upper row, because I do not have adapter for the other one)
    primary monitor: AG neovo 1920x1080, connects directly to GPU via HDMI
    secondary monitor: Benq GL2450 1920x1080, connects with VGA through VGA/DVI adapter to DVI port on GPU

 

disclaimer: all HW, cables, adapters are functional. On previous installation (and reinstallation for testing) of Windows 10 all works as desired.

 

Because of most of my work I am doing is in WSL and all my games should be playable on linux too, I decided to go full on linux and I chose PopOS. Everything works fine, except that my secondary monitor plugged into DVI claims, that there is no signal. If I plug it into HDMI via VGA/HDMI adapter, then it works just fine. But then my other monitor has nowhere to be plugged. During boot both monitors work as excepted, but the moment linux is loaded the secondary monitor shuts down with "no signal" message. However the monitor gets detected correctly in settings and I can change it's resolution, relative position, etc. Just no signal.

 

In case it is a distro specific problem, I tried both live usb and install of different distros - Ubuntu, Linux Mint, openSUSE Tumbleweed. I encountered the same issue in all of them. While in Ubuntu (default kernel 5.15) I tried few different kernels - 5.16, 5.14, 5.11. Unfortunately no change in behaviour.

 

Some searching gave me some very old and some newer posts dealing with similar issue with completely different hardware. Usually they led to no resolution or dealt with Nvidia GPU.

 

Atm. I am back to installation of PopOS 22.04. Here is some info that I found out is usually useful when dealing with this kind of problems:

user@pop-os:~$ uname -r
5.17.5-76051705-generic

-------------------------------------------------

user@pop-os:~$ sudo lshw -c video 
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Tonga PRO [Radeon R9 285/380]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       logical name: /dev/fb0
       version: f1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom fb
       configuration: depth=32 driver=amdgpu latency=0 resolution=1920,1080
       resources: irq:35 memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d01fffff ioport:e000(size=256) memory:fe900000-fe93ffff memory:c0000-dffff

-------------------------------------------------

user@pop-os:~$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-A-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 598mm x 336mm
   1920x1080     60.00 +  50.00    59.94* 
   1680x1050     59.88  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1440x900      74.98    59.90  
   1280x800      60.00  
   1280x720      60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       72.19    75.00    60.32    56.25  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    66.67    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08  
DVI-D-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 298mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1600x900      60.00  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1440x900      60.00  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00  
   1024x768      75.03    60.00  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       75.00    60.32  
   640x480       75.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08

My only idea how to resolve this issue is buying VGA to Display port adapter and try how that works. However even if that works, that leaves my DVI port unusable. Any advice how to resolve this issue?

[SpookyCitrus]

Can you possibly switch the text color back to default? Those of us with Dark Mode enabled are having a tough time reading your post.

[Windows7ge]

What motherboard are you using?

[mariushm]

I think on those old AMD video cards, one DVI is "shared" with the HDMI port ... as in you can't have 3 monitors connected, one on HDMI and two on DVI ... it's either 2 x DVI or 1xHDMI +1xDVI  ... plus displayport.

 

also if this is your card : https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/R9-380-GAMING-4G/Specification

 

The specs says DVI-I x 1, DVI-D x1  ... this means only the DVI-I connector has the analogue pins, allowing you to use a basic 1-2$  dvi-vga passive adapter (which just rearranges the wires between the connectors)

 

 

[Mangovnik]

39 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Can you possibly switch the text color back to default? Those of us with Dark Mode enabled are having a tough time reading your post.

Sorry for the inconvenience. It should be fixed now.

[Mangovnik]

29 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

What motherboard are you using?

Motherboard is MSI 970 gaming.

[Mangovnik]

12 minutes ago, mariushm said:

I think on those old AMD video cards, one DVI is "shared" with the HDMI port ... as in you can't have 3 monitors connected, one on HDMI and two on DVI ... it's either 2 x DVI or 1xHDMI +1xDVI  ... plus displayport.

 

 

That's how I am trying to used the video card. One monitor in HDMI and other in DVI. I was using it like that under Windows for years without a issue too. Just to be sure I unplugged the HDMI monitor, but stil didn't get signal from DVI.

 

Old video card... feels same as when a barber tells me that I have gray hair...

[Windows7ge]

6 minutes ago, Mangovnik said:

Motherboard is MSI 970 gaming.

Then it really sounds like a driver related issue. Usually the mainstream distros are a package deal where you don't have to deal with drivers but an AMD driver is available for Ubuntu 18.04.5, 20.04.4, and plain Linux if you happen to know how to install that one on PopOS. It's worth a shot if you currently have a fresh install you don't mind nuking if the OS kind of kills itself. Installing drivers like this can be hit-or-miss on Linux.

[Mangovnik]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Then it really sounds like a driver related issue. Usually the mainstream distros are a package deal where you don't have to deal with drivers but an AMD driver is available for Ubuntu 18.04.5, 20.04.4, and plain Linux if you happen to know how to install that one on PopOS. It's worth a shot if you currently have a fresh install you don't mind nuking if the OS kind of kills itself. Installing drivers like this can be hit-or-miss on Linux.

I tried to install the driver for Ubuntu 20.04, but got denied because I have unsupported id 'pop'. When I tried the same thing with Ubuntu 22.04 it failed on some other error. I have no idea how to do it on PopOS (or any other distro), but they got some instruction pdf there. Just to be sure, are we talking about this?

[Mangovnik]

39 minutes ago, mariushm said:

also if this is your card : https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/R9-380-GAMING-4G/Specification

 

The specs says DVI-I x 1, DVI-D x1  ... this means only the DVI-I connector has the analogue pins, allowing you to use a basic 1-2$  dvi-vga passive adapter (which just rearranges the wires between the connectors)

 

 

Yes, that's my card. And yes, I am using the DVI-I port with passive DVI-VGA adapter.

[Windows7ge]

38 minutes ago, Mangovnik said:

I tried to install the driver for Ubuntu 20.04, but got denied because I have unsupported id 'pop'. When I tried the same thing with Ubuntu 22.04 it failed on some other error. I have no idea how to do it on PopOS (or any other distro), but they got some instruction pdf there. Just to be sure, are we talking about this?

Yep. You're going to discover drivers on Linux if they say they're only for "version xx.xx.x" then more than likely they're only going to work on that version and no other. It's not like Windows where a Windows XP or Windows 7 driver/application can run on Windows 10. The compatibility isn't there. In these scenarios I believe you have to compile the driver yourself from binary for your distro but I have no idea how to do that.

 

Out of curiosity did you try turning the computer on with just the DVI display attached? I assume nothing but a black screen after the BIOS Splash?

[Mangovnik]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

Yep. You're going to discover drivers on Linux if they say they're only for "version xx.xx.x" then more than likely they're only going to work on that version and no other. It's not like Windows where a Windows XP or Windows 7 driver/application can run on Windows 10. The compatibility isn't there. In these scenarios I believe you have to compile the driver yourself from binary for your distro but I have no idea how to do that.

 

Out of curiosity did you try turning the computer on with just the DVI display attached? I assume nothing but a black screen after the BIOS Splash?

I will consider compiling after I try out the vga/display port adapter that I have ordered.

 

As you say, just  black screen after BIOS splash. Both hot swapping or just DVI from boot.

[C2dan88]

2 hours ago, Mangovnik said:

I tried to install the driver for Ubuntu 20.04, but got denied because I have unsupported id 'pop'.

You can either edit /etc/os-release and change ID=pop to ID=ubuntu and then install the amd driver

sudo nano /etc/os-release

Use CTRL+X to exit, type Y for yes followed by Enter to save changes.

After driver installation change the id back to pop

 

or edit the amdgpu_install.sh script and find this

		case "$ID" in
		ubuntu|linuxmint|debian)

then add |pop after debian so it reads

		case "$ID" in
		ubuntu|linuxmint|debian|pop)

 

[Mangovnik]

11 hours ago, C2dan88 said:

You can either edit /etc/os-release and change ID=pop to ID=ubuntu and then install the amd driver

sudo nano /etc/os-release

Use CTRL+X to exit, type Y for yes followed by Enter to save changes.

After driver installation change the id back to pop

 

or edit the amdgpu_install.sh script and find this

		case "$ID" in
		ubuntu|linuxmint|debian)

then add |pop after debian so it reads

		case "$ID" in
		ubuntu|linuxmint|debian|pop)

 

Thank you for your insight. But by borrowing display port adapter I found out that using HDMI+display port on my card works. So I decided that I gonna surrender and won't be using the DVI port on it.