Support for LG Ultrafine 5K monitor

Does the framework laptop support LG UltraFine 5K monitor. From what I read on other sites it should then support 5K resolution over USB-C ( (DP 1.4 Alt Mode).

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5k monitors (and even 8k monitors) should work fine over the USB-C Expansion Card or DP Expansion Card.

The HDMI Expansion Card is limited to 4k and similar resolutions like 5120 x 1440.

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Can anybody confirm that they have it working with an LG Ultrafine 5K monitor?

Iā€™m Batch 2, but I have the LG Ultrafine 5K and will test it once I get it.

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Thank you! Howā€™d the test turn out?

LG UltraFine 5K uses two DisplayPort 1.2 connections over Thunderbolt 3 for 5K60 mode (allows 10bpc RGB). The Framework Laptop can do Thunderbolt 4 so it should work.

The current version of LG UltraFine 5K (27MD5KL) also supports USB-C (non-Thunderbolt connection). The previous version (27MD5KA) can only work with Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt connection is required for USB 3.0 speed.

With a USB-C (non-Thunderbolt connection) you can get 4K60 and USB 2.0. You might be able to get 5K39 with a custom timing (it has a ā‰ˆ600 MHz max pixel clock even though DisplayPort 1.2 should be able to support more). Iā€™ve only seen one person try 5K39.

With a DisplayPort connection (not Thunderbolt or USB-C), you can use a Belkin Charge and Sync cable or Wacom Link Plus or other method to include USB 2.0.

USB is used by the display for USB ports, audio, camera, and brightness control (with Boot Camp driver or you can try a method that communicates with DDI/CI for brightness control). I think you can get the Boot Camp driver even if you donā€™t have a Mac (see the Brigadier GitHub project).

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Can anybody confirm that they have the framework laptop working with the LG Ultrafine 5K monitor?

It should work just fine with that monitor, I have ran the 5k with a Thinkpad that had TB3/USB-C and it worked great. Considering that the framework has Thunderbolt (just not advertised) it will work. Just like @joevt stated. Framework has an advantage that the USB-c ports are not just USB-C ports but they are TB4 ports so either model of the LG 5K will work.

Have an LG Ultrafine 5k and installed stock pop_os. Unfortunately, autodetect doesnā€™t work, and what is displayed on the Ultrafine is not usable. All rendering is shifted to the upper left quadrant of the screen.

Canā€™t promise Iā€™ll get back to this, but if I do, will report here. Am optimistic.

Did anyone try this? I would like to use 2x LG Ultrafine 4K with the Framework, if I buy one.

My experience with recently purchase LG 38WN95C-W monitor. The LG supplied Thunderbolt 3 Cable did not work with the Framework Laptop. I purchased a Cable Matters 40Gbps USB4 Thunderbolt 4 Cable and it successfully connected at 3840x1600@120Hz. I am using SwayWM on Arch Linux.

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EDIT: The LG UltraFine 5K works perfectly under Windows 10 at full resolution stably and with no tearing issues. This tells me the Framework firmware is fine as of now. Iā€™m using the Appleā€™s 0.8m Thunderbolt Cable.


On Linux, I can confirm that it works great using Appleā€™s 0.8m Thunderbolt Cable. Longer cables, including the supplied cable with the monitor, did not work. This seems to be a firmware issue with a fix in the pipeline.

EDIT: Iā€™ve found that on Wayland on Linux, there is screen tearing vertically in the middle when scrolling and moving content. In addition, night light only applies to half of the screen. There is an open issue on mutter and a in-progress merge request to fix it.

EDIT: Not so great on Linux with Wayland. Occasionally, the second display port stream stops working and it takes a mix of reconnecting and power cycling the screen to make it work again.

EDIT: Tracking the issue on drm/intel bug tracker.

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Without that TB4 certification for the Framework laptop, anything that uses TB connectivity is a YMMV IMOā€¦because as nrp mentioned, they (the certification body) still need to come up with /develop the test cases. Without the certification, thereā€™s less assurance as to whether TB is functioning correctly on the Framework laptopā€¦or if any TB connectivity issue is caused by some other factors.

Reference: the later part of this postā€¦

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I actually tested this with Windows and it works perfect, so it must be some Linux/Wayland specific issue Iā€™m having.

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Hi all,

I have the Lg40 Ultra wide but I have issues connecting VIA usb C on W11. All drivers from both windows and LG are updated, also FW drivers. Been searching for an answer/solution for 3 days. Has anyone found a solution or the pair can only work over DP and HDMI?

Here a link to a video of my issue.

Thanks in advance if someone has a solution!

Looks like most people here havenā€™t actually tried and reported their success/failure with LG Ultrafine 5k.

Iā€™m using Arch with Sway/Wayland,

When I first connected the LG Ultrafine 5k to my usb-c port the framework display would shut off for a few seconds and then come back on, and this would repeat over and over again.

From the dmesg output this is what I was seeing over and over again (this is just a short snippet of a larger dmesg output):

[148123.707088] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: retimer disconnected
[148123.719290] thunderbolt 1-3: device disconnected
[148127.598434] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: new retimer found, vendor=0x8087 device=0x15ee
[148128.250885] thunderbolt 1-3: new device found, vendor=0x1e device=0x1114
[148128.250895] thunderbolt 1-3: LG Electronics UltraFine 5K
[148132.968013] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: retimer disconnected
[148132.980416] thunderbolt 1-3: device disconnected
[148133.145343] usb 3-5: new high-speed USB device number 79 using xhci_hcd
[148136.789518] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: new retimer found, vendor=0x8087 device=0x15ee
[148137.441204] thunderbolt 1-3: new device found, vendor=0x1e device=0x1114
[148137.441214] thunderbolt 1-3: LG Electronics UltraFine 5K
[148334.831281] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: retimer disconnected
[148334.843710] thunderbolt 1-3: device disconnected
[148335.058661] usb 3-5: new high-speed USB device number 81 using xhci_hcd
[148336.078705] usb 3-5: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[148338.658017] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: new retimer found, vendor=0x8087 device=0x15ee
[148339.312318] thunderbolt 1-3: new device found, vendor=0x1e device=0x1114
[148339.312330] thunderbolt 1-3: LG Electronics UltraFine 5K
[148341.130224] thunderbolt 1-0:3.1: retimer disconnected
[148341.140728] thunderbolt 1-3: device disconnected
[148342.548589] usb 3-5: new high-speed USB device number 83 using xhci_hcd

Note the thunderbolt connects and disconnects. The USB side of things fails to read the device descriptor with error -71. I did a cursory look into the Linux kernel USB drivers to see what was going on, but got lost and couldnā€™t find these error strings whatsoever.

Anyway the primary monitor kept shutting off every few seconds, presumably to do with those thunderbolt events in dmesg. I did manage to get output to the LG when I was just in VGA console mode, but it didnā€™t really work all that well (it was a mirrored display) as the LG display was really enlarged and nothing fit on the screen.

So after about 20 minutes of the annoying display cycling I unplugged the display.

My system is usually on hibernate, and when I did the above experiment it was resumed from a previous hibernate. Someone suggested I try with a reboot.

So I reboot and connected the display a second time.

The second time, nothing happened, no display power cycling. I checked dmesg and got the following messages:

[  152.656573] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 76 using xhci_hcd
[  153.733249] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 77 using xhci_hcd
[  155.029908] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 78 using xhci_hcd
[  157.126575] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 80 using xhci_hcd
[  160.046578] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 81 using xhci_hcd
[  162.423321] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 82 using xhci_hcd
[  163.466663] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 83 using xhci_hcd
[  165.369892] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 84 using xhci_hcd
[  166.389962] usb 3-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[  168.609913] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 85 using xhci_hcd
[  169.693206] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 86 using xhci_hcd
[  172.619953] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 87 using xhci_hcd
[  173.663290] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 88 using xhci_hcd
[  174.679955] usb 3-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[  178.713167] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 89 using xhci_hcd
[  181.636646] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 90 using xhci_hcd
[  182.686624] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 91 using xhci_hcd
[  183.730014] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 92 using xhci_hcd

No thunderbolt diagnostics. So for some reason the thunderbolt wasnā€™t being detected or not running.

I donā€™t know what else to do, so Iā€™m seeking support.

I know the LG Ultrafine 5k can work in Linux because this reddit thread shows the poster having it working.

Edit: looks like I needed to charge my battery back up to high levels for the thunderbolt devices to be detected, which is strange because the LG should be doing power delivery.

I filed this exact bug back in June and linked it earlier in the thread: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/6265

Also, do you have a 11th Gen or a 12th Gen board?

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Sorry for delay in reply (for some reason I donā€™t get emails when this thread is updated). I have a 12th gen board.

Iā€™ll add to your issue once my gitlab account is approved. Updated your bug report.

I notice you actually have the monitor working and displaying things. I havenā€™t even gotten that far. Am I missing something in userspace to work with the i915?

I have the same problem as ā€œsoftware_developerā€. Also fan goes on high, once you start a few apps on 5k.

Can confirm, video, audio, camera all work on the 11th Generation Framework running Kubuntu (Linux) 22.04 using this cable

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