Lenovo W520 and Dock w/ External Monitor

**jwir3** · July 27th, 2011

Hello.

I recently received a Lenovo Thinkpad W520 with a Dock and external Dell U2410 monitor from my company. I am using Ubuntu linux on it, and I have been able to install the nvidia proprietary drivers such that the external monitor works, but not the laptop screen.

So, basically, my setup is that while I am at home, everything is fine, except that I can't use both the laptop monitor and the external monitor at the same time (for some reason, the nvidia-settings tool doesn't recognize the laptop monitor). It does recognize the U2410 monitor and displays it just fine (I have it connected using DisplayPort).

However, when I remove the laptop from the dock, this becomes a problem, because it won't boot into x/gnome without the dock (and thus the external monitor) connected. I can get to a virtual terminal, but I don't know exactly what to do to get it back to boot X on the laptop LCD screen.

So, my question is twofold:
1) Is there a way I can get it to extend my monitor from the external Dell monitor onto the laptop LCD screen when the laptop is connected to the dock? If so, how can I do this?

2) When I remove the laptop from the dock, is there a way to get it to automatically recognize this situation and use the laptop LCD screen instead of trying to use the external monitor?

I am posting my xorg.conf file for reference.

Thanks in advance,

~Scott

Code:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 275.19  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-07.nvidia.com)  Tue Jul 12 18:35:38 PDT 2011

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "U2410"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BusId "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option "NoLogo" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option "TwinView" "1"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

**wolke** · November 10th, 2011

i know this is from awhile back, but anyhoo.
is there any way to use the dock with the intel graphics instead of the nvidia card? in other words, if you disable optimus and optimus detection in the BIOS, and set use integrated instead of discrete, does the monitor connected to the dock get recognized?
if it does, it should be trivial to get what you want done.
{i know that you cant hookup a monitor to the VGA/DVI ports on the main machine and get it to work with the intel card}

**produnis** · February 13th, 2012

This is how I did it:

1. In BIOS, change "Display" from "OPTIMUS" to "DESCRETE"

2. Install NVIDIA-Drivers (via Jockey)

3. Install Disper via PPA:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:disper-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install disper

4. DISconnect your W520 from Dock, open Terminal and type:

Code:

disper -l

This will list all available monitors. With my machine, it looks like this:

Code:

display DFP-0: LEN
 resolutions: 320x175, 320x200, 360x200, 320x240, 400x300, 416x312, 512x384, 640x350, 576x432, 640x400, 680x384, 720x400, 640x480, 720x450, 640x512, 700x525, 800x512, 840x525, 800x600, 960x540, 832x624, 960x600, 896x672, 928x696, 960x720, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1360x768, 1280x960, 1440x900, 1280x1024, 1400x1050, 1600x1024, 1680x1050, 1920x1080

5. CONNECT your W520 to your Dock and type in again:

Code:

disper -l

This will list all available monitors. With my machine, having 2 external Monitors connected to the Dock, it looks like this:

Code:

display DFP-0: LEN
 resolutions: 320x175, 320x200, 360x200, 320x240, 400x300, 416x312, 512x384, 640x350, 576x432, 640x400, 680x384, 720x400, 640x480, 720x450, 640x512, 700x525, 800x512, 840x525, 800x600, 960x540, 832x624, 960x600, 896x672, 928x696, 960x720, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1360x768, 1280x960, 1440x900, 1280x1024, 1400x1050, 1600x1024, 1680x1050, 1920x1080

display CRT-0: FUS B19-3
 resolutions: 320x240, 400x300, 512x384, 680x384, 640x480, 720x450, 700x525, 840x525, 800x600, 960x540, 832x624, 960x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1360x768, 1280x960, 1440x900, 1400x1050, 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1280x1024

display DFP-2: Samsung SyncMaster
 resolutions: 320x175, 320x200, 360x200, 320x240, 400x300, 416x312, 512x384, 640x350, 576x432, 640x400, 680x384, 720x400, 640x480, 720x450, 640x512, 700x525, 800x512, 840x525, 800x600, 960x540, 832x624, 960x600, 896x672, 928x696, 960x720, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x960, 1280x1024

Note the Monitor-Labels, which I marked red. Yours might be different from mine...

6. In order to shut-off the W520 Display, and at the same time activate both external monitors, you need to type in:

Code: