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View Full Version : [SOLVED] Nvidia drivers, black screen display manager, and 4 displays



devodl
October 7th, 2018, 02:39 AM
Posted as Solved because there is a workaround but it would be interesting to learn the root cause.

Here's my story
Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti card with 4 display devices (1 DisplayPort, 2 HDMI, 1 DVI)
New system update comes out and during reboot the system hangs. Prior experience has shown that the Nvidia drivers often need to be updated or reinstalled.
Ctrl+Alt+F2, login as root, kill processes using Xserver, reinstall the Nvidia drivers, reboot and everything is fine unless...
A fourth display (in my case a Samsung TV) is physically connected through HDMI.

Symptom
When a fourth display is plugged in during a reboot and when gdm/lightdm are starting then a black screen appears on display #1 and the other displays remain idle (no signal).
Solution: Unplug the fourth display and the system will boot and display properly. (It may even complete the current boot after a few minutes).

Note: Once logged in the 4th display can be plugged back in and used to expand the desktop.

It is not clear why the display behaves in this manner but I figured I would post the symptoms and workaround solution for those who have 4 displays.

FWIW,
Steve