So, I got a monitor that connects through USB-C (both power and video), I connected it to one of the side ports and… nothing. Well, it powers on, but says no signal.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the USB-C port on the dGPU (which does work), but through the expansion card slots. According to this, display output is supported on slots 1 (top-left, 2 (mid-left), and 4 (top-right). I’ve tried putting a USB-C card in each of those slots, but none of them will output video to my monitor.
My goal here is to use the secondary display for the iGPU (for browsing, video watching, etc) while the internal display is for the dGPU (for gaming and such). Am I doing something wrong here? Am I misunderstanding how video out works on the FW16?
I’ve got a portable monitor that I’m having similar trouble with. I’m in Linux though (Manjaro KDE). I figured it was likely due to just being a cheapo no-name portable monitor that didn’t follow the spec exactly, the HDMI expansion card works with it just fine, and I can get it to display via the dGPU output, but the USB-C expansion cards (or even plugged directly into the mainboard without an expansion card) are all a no go. I suppose it could also be a Linux thing, but considering you’re also having issues under Windows, that makes me slightly less certain it’s just a Linux thing.
Not that these kernel logs will help your situation, but perhaps they’ll provide some insights to Framework (or someone else about what could be going wrong.
3/21/24 10:40 PM kernel xhci_hcd 0000:c7:00.3: Refused to change power state from D0 to D3hot
3/21/24 10:40 PM kernel ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: ucsi_handle_connector_change: ACK failed (-110)
I also have a monitor that I can connect to via usb-c directly, I just plug it into one of the supported ports and it works as one would expect (Arch Linux). I know there are a lot of different protocols and such that complicate compatibility, I don’t know what my monitor uses to do it over usb c. In practice though I still use a display port adapter because my usb-c doesn’t support 4k@144hz.
Have you tried another USBC cable? I found my one monitor refused to work with a cable it was previously working fine with on another device. Dug out another cable I made sure was fully display capable and no more problems.
Thanks for the suggestion. I was using the USB-C cable that came with the monitor (which did work on my previous laptop running W10), but I did try a couple of other cables I had. Unfortunately, those didn’t work, either. Though, I’m not 100% sure if those cables can handle video, either.
If the cable is the issue, any recommendations for ones that are video capable?
I’m glad you’ve asked about cables, I need to buy some good quality USB-C cables and not sure which brand would be best (not much experience with buying cables recently and virtually no experience with USB-C especially for video output).
I bought a few CableMatters cables rated for PD and display output a while ago. Wasn’t using them because they were pretty long, but they worked for me once I swapped over.
Most thunderbolt 3 and 4 cables are definitely also display alt capable, though not all PD cables necessarily are. Don’t really have much recommendation in terms of manufacturer though.
is the iGPU disabled when using the dGPU? I’m wondering if that’s why you’re not getting any output from the USB-C ports on the sides (they are connected to the iGPU). when you have the dGPU enabled (to drive the internal display).
Try disabling the dGPU (running just the iGPU) and see if the side outputs are working in that configuration.
For what it’s worth, only port 4 (rear right) works for me on Linux; no other ports including the one on the dGPU successfully output video over USB-C with my current monitor + cable pair.
All of the other ports worked as expected under Windows.
I have a Lenovo L15 external USB-C monitor that works on a MacBook Pro 13 and a NUC11 with the included C-to-C cable.
On FW16 running Arch with Kernel version 6.8.1, I only get an output when connected to the dGPU, and only if it is not “suspended”.
When I connect the monitor to USB-C expansion card in slots 1,2 or 4 I get journal messages like
ar 24 22:39:16 framework kernel: amdgpu 0000:c4:00.0: [drm] Alt mode has timed out after 218 ms
Mar 24 22:39:17 framework boltd[521]: probing: timeout, done: [2315826] (2000000)
Mar 24 22:39:19 framework kernel: ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: ucsi_handle_connector_change: ACK failed (-110)
Edit:
FW16 behaves the same with the LG 29UM69G-B monitor that is usually connected to my NUC
Update:
had some time and tested again. This time with DP and HDMI extension modules as well as with USB-C and the C-to-C cable mentioned:
Woke laptop from suspend as usual
No matter which module, no ouput @ ports 1/2/4
decided to plug the HDMI module into dGPU USBC port and wake the dGPU → sensors (from lm-sensors) hung, had to hard-reset…
On first reboot, no module worked
Power down + reboot: modules were recognized again, but still no output
Here I wanted to try an older 6.5.x kernel.
since I didn’t install one in my Arch install, I fired up a Fedora 39 live usb (on ventoy)
Modules were recognized and external displays WORKED! (yes, had two connected)
checked journalctl and found similar messages as in Arch (+ GNOME finding the monitors)
I then rebooted into Arch with everything still connected and now have working external displays. I also tried the modules in different slots as well as suspend with and without displays connected.
I have no idea why, but it all works now
These problems might be due to bugs in DP link training.
In that bug, it failed in some kernels and worked in others e.g.:
5.16.0-rc5 works.
5.17.1 fails
5.18.0-rc3 works.
The AMD GPU drivers change so often and all the code gets moved around so often, it seems that old bugs get re-introduced quite easily.
Maybe the bug has come back in some more recent kernels.
For example, the patch I wrote for 5.17.1 won’t apply to more recent kernels as their code paths and behaviour is quite different.
So, I cannot help you at the moment, but this might be an explanation as to why some kernels work and some do not.
I’m not sure. I’ve checked the BIOS, and I didn’t see any settings that would’ve been relevant.
I’ve installed the driver package from Framework’s knowledge base, but I’m not aware of any other drivers I need to install? And there haven’t been any updates to that yet.
I’ve tried the different Projection options, and the second monitor does nothing (except turn on) if not connected to the dGPU USB-C port.
Heyo! Just want to flag up my experiences given I’m getting the same error as @undermark5, but have more data points. Specifically, the error of ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: ucsi_handle_connector_change: ACK failed (-110) - both are LG 24MK430H-B (I hit my link limit lol)
I have verified it’s not the cables, I have now bought 12 different pairs of cables, with different combos of ports they work with.
Additionally, through the framework official DP input module, I can’t ever get the displays to work, no matter where it’s plugged in, even with TLP disabled to confirm it’s not a factor.
System is Arch Linux, running 6.8.1-zen1-1-zen with amd-ucode 20240312.3b128b60-1 and mesa 1:24.0.3-2 + amdvlk 2024.Q1.2-1
I can also confirm that on a dell XPS 15 with an intel iGPU, all of these docks work flawlessly with both monitors across all ports.
