HDMI not working on fresh install with Nvidia

Hello everyone.
Before anyone complains, I am aware that I am not the first person reporting problems with HDMI and nvidia. I have been looking for the last three days for a way to get a secondary Monitor, connected via HDMI, to work. So I know that there are a bunch of threats out there, both in this forum and in others. I am opening a new threat anyways, because none of those helped me. That means sending me the link to another threat and saying “have you tried this?” won’t help me either. I have already seen whatever link you’ll send me and it didn’t help.

Okay, sorry for the little rant at the beginning. Now, to my problem. I have a laptop with an internal screen and an external monitor connected via hdmi. My graphics card is an nvidia rtx 2060.
I downloaded the manjaro iso with gnome from their website, booted into the live sesseion with proprietary drivers. In the live session, there were no issues. However, after installing manjaro and booting into the installed version, I no longer had an image on the external monitor connected via hdmi.
This is the case when I have the “video-nvidia” driver or the “video-hybrid-int-nvidia-prime” driver installed. When I have neither installed, my external monitor works fine, but, well, then I wouldn’t have a driver for my graphics card.
I have seen that this is a common issue. Many people reported that HDMI doesn’t work with the hybrid-driver and suggested using the pure nvidia driver, but I have the same issue with that one too.
I have tried any combination of the two proprietary drivers and the three open source drivers available in the manjaro settings in a fresh manjaro installation.
Among the solutions I found, there were many suggesting that I make manual edits to some config files. I haven’t tried that suggestion for the simple reason, that I didn’t understand them. They were simply above my skill level. Either I didn’t know in which file they made those edits or they said things like “adjust this according to your situation”, or I just felt really uncomfortable about it because I didn’t understand what was going on.

So, what am I looking for?
Either for a detailed and well explained(!) explanation on how to get an external hdmi monitor to work on a fresh installation of Manjaro Gnome,
or
Someone willing to sit down with me and help me via voice chat and screen sharing. Naturally I’d be willing to pay for that, if we find a solution, which works, is reproducable and keeps working throughout future updates.

Where you see that info?,HDMI indeed works with hybrid driver,the only thing that people reported is that when they connect to a external display and power down the laptop display everything goes slow,thats a bug from the NVIDIA driver,that where we propose a solution to them.

Install the hybrid driver,then type this 2 commands and paste the output to see where is your problem

nvidia-smi
inxi -Fazy

I ran these commands twice; once right after installing the hybrid driver and then again after rebooting:

nviidia-smi before reboot:

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

inxi -Fazy output before reboot:

System:
  Kernel: 5.13.15-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64 
  root=UUID=783c8b14-d941-43d5-a2b0-e35779587d88 rw quiet splash apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: GNOME 40.4 tk: GTK 3.24.30 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 40.1 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: TUXEDO product: TUXEDO v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Chassis: Notebook type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: TUXEDO model: NH5x_7xEDx,RCx,RDx serial: <filter> UEFI: INSYDE 
  v: 1.07.14RTR1 date: 10/08/2019 
CPU:
  Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 9E (158) stepping: A (10) 
  microcode: EA cache: L2: 9 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 52815 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 872 
  3: 3588 4: 3546 5: 2771 6: 1948 7: 1194 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 
  12: 800 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e9b class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU106M [GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: nouveau v: kernel alternate: nvidia_drm,nvidia bus-ID: 01:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10de:1f11 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-2.3:6 chip-ID: 046d:0825 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter> 
  Device-4: Acer BisonCam NB Pro type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:3 
  chip-ID: 5986:9102 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: wayland server: X.org 1.20.13 compositor: gnome-shell driver: 
  loaded: modesetting,nvidia alternate: fbdev,nouveau,nv,vesa display-ID: 0 
  resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.1 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl 
  bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a348 class-ID: 0403 
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU106 High Definition Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10f9 
  class-ID: 0403 
  Device-3: Logitech G430 Surround Sound Gaming Headset type: USB 
  driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus-ID: 1-2.1.3:10 
  chip-ID: 046d:0a4d class-ID: 0300 
  Device-4: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-2.3:6 chip-ID: 046d:0825 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter> 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.15-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.35 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 4000 
  bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2526 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlp8s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 09:00.1 
  chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
  IF: enp9s0f1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 Bluetooth Adapter type: USB driver: btusb 
  v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-14:5 chip-ID: 8087:0025 class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: see --recommends 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.27 TiB used: 8.83 GiB (0.4%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra 3D NVMe 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
  lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 211070WD temp: 39.9 C scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO M.2 500GB 
  size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 3B6Q scheme: GPT 
  ID-3: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 1TB 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 19.53 GiB size: 19.06 GiB (97.57%) used: 8.83 GiB (46.4%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 50 MiB size: 49.2 MiB (98.43%) 
  used: 274 KiB (0.5%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 72.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 49.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 322 Uptime: 4m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.35 GiB 
  used: 2.17 GiB (14.1%) Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers: 
  gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1105 lib: 286 flatpak: 0 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 
  running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.06 

nvidia-smi output after reboot:

Sun Oct  3 17:29:47 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.63.01    Driver Version: 470.63.01    CUDA Version: 11.4     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   56C    P8     5W /  N/A |      0MiB /  5934MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

inxi -Fazy output after reboot

System:
  Kernel: 5.13.19-2-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64 
  root=UUID=783c8b14-d941-43d5-a2b0-e35779587d88 rw quiet splash apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: GNOME 40.4 tk: GTK 3.24.30 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 40.1 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: TUXEDO product: TUXEDO v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Chassis: Notebook type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: TUXEDO model: NH5x_7xEDx,RCx,RDx serial: <filter> UEFI: INSYDE 
  v: 1.07.14RTR1 date: 10/08/2019 
CPU:
  Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 9E (158) stepping: A (10) 
  microcode: EA cache: L2: 9 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 52815 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 3908 
  3: 2973 4: 1848 5: 963 6: 1062 7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e9b class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU106M [GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: nvidia v: 470.63.01 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus-ID: 01:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10de:1f11 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-2.3:6 chip-ID: 046d:0825 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter> 
  Device-4: Acer BisonCam NB Pro type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:3 
  chip-ID: 5986:9102 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: wayland server: X.org 1.20.13 compositor: gnome-shell driver: 
  loaded: modesetting,nvidia alternate: fbdev,nouveau,nv,vesa display-ID: 0 
  resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.2 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl 
  bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a348 class-ID: 0403 
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU106 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10f9 class-ID: 0403 
  Device-3: Logitech G430 Surround Sound Gaming Headset type: USB 
  driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus-ID: 1-2.1.3:10 
  chip-ID: 046d:0a4d class-ID: 0300 
  Device-4: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-2.3:6 chip-ID: 046d:0825 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter> 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.19-2-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.37 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 4000 
  bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2526 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlp8s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 09:00.1 
  chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
  IF: enp9s0f1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 Bluetooth Adapter type: USB driver: btusb 
  v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-14:5 chip-ID: 8087:0025 class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: see --recommends 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.27 TiB used: 9.56 GiB (0.4%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra 3D NVMe 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
  lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 211070WD temp: 38.9 C scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO M.2 500GB 
  size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 3B6Q scheme: GPT 
  ID-3: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 1TB 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 19.53 GiB size: 19.06 GiB (97.57%) used: 9.56 GiB (50.2%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 50 MiB size: 49.2 MiB (98.43%) 
  used: 274 KiB (0.5%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 70.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 316 Uptime: 1m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.35 GiB 
  used: 1.87 GiB (12.2%) Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers: 
  gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1107 lib: 287 flatpak: 0 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 
  running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.06 


Ok the driver is installed correctly but for some reason you are in integrated mode in NVIDIA,meaning the NVIDIA card only will work to render internally (like games or do 3D intensive tasks) but the HDMI port will not work,the solution is to change to NVIDIA mode,for that install optimus-manager

You can install it with this command

pamac build optimus-manager

Since you are using GNOME,you also need to install gdm-prime

pamac build gdm-prime

then reboot,now in the terminal you can change modes

optimus-manager --switch nvidia
optimus-manager --switch integrated
optimus-manager --switch hybrid

Switch to nvidia mode,logout and login again,your HDMI port should work now,and if you run the command nvidia-smi,every process will appear there (as the NVIDIA card will now be rendering everything),verify and tell me if you have any problems.

That was surprisingly easy, wow. Yes, that worked wonderfully! Thank you so much! Adding a third monitor works via displayport works wonderfully too. Really, that all went so astonishingly well. Thank you :smiley:


There was one missing step, which I’ll post here for other people who run into the same issue as I did. At first I got this from optimus-manager --switch nvidia:

ERROR: a GPU setup was initiated but Xorg post-start hook did not run.
Log at /var/log/optimus-manager/switch/switch-20211003T180542.log
If your login manager is GDM, make sure to follow those instructions:
https://github.com/Askannz/optimus-manager#important--gnome-and-gdm-users
If your display manager is neither GDM, SDDM nor LightDM, or if you don't use one, read the wiki:
https://github.com/Askannz/optimus-manager/wiki/FAQ,-common-issues,-troubleshooting
Cannot execute command because of previous errors.

under the link https://github.com/Askannz/optimus-manager#important–gnome-and-gdm-users it describes that in gnome, you also need to edit the file /etc/gdm/custom.conf. You need to uncomment the line #WaylandEnable=false. Hope this helps anyone who runs into the same issue.

1 Like

I skip that part because Manjaro disables Wayland to NVIDIA users,so it should be false by default

Glad it work!,also,I recommend you to install optimus-manager-qt to have a graphic way to manage modes

also to make it startup mode in nvidia,otherwise if you reboot you need to change modes again

Just a suggestion and this is important,When I was helping you I noticed that the gdm-prime that you install is for GNOME 40,right now you are in GNOME 40,when gdm-prime updates I think that update is gonna be for GNOME 41,so until Manjaro updates to GNOME 41 too try to not update gdm-prime to avoid problems.