Second Monitor Rarely Works, Often Flickers

English Hardware
#1

I’ve been having trouble getting my dual monitor (HDMI and DP) setup to work. It’s been really hit or miss, but it essentially boils down to a few scenarios.

  1. HDMI receives output, DP doesn’t. Display -> Unify Outputs brings output to DP. Display -> Break Unified Outputs gives me the result I want.

  2. HDMI receives output, DP receives output but flickers. Sometimes above step fixes it, sometimes it doesn’t

  3. HDMI receives output, DP doesn’t, and nothing I do fixes it.

What’s weird is that opensuse IS detecting the second monitor. I should also say that this happens regardless of whether I use Plasma 5 or Gnome. I can usually tell which of the above scenarios I’m in once the log in page loads. Here’s output from xrandr


james@linux-lgti: xrandr 
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 4480 x 1440, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-3 connected primary 1920x1080+0+360 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 475mm x 267mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  50.00    59.94  
   1920x1080i    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1680x1050     59.88  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1440x900      59.90  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1280x800      59.91  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1440x576      50.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   1440x480      60.00    59.94  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       72.19    75.00    60.32    56.25  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    66.67    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08  
DP-1 connected 2560x1440+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm
   2560x1440     59.95*+
   1920x1080     60.00    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1920x1080i    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1680x1050     59.88  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1440x900      59.90  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1280x800      59.91  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1440x576      50.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   1440x480      60.00    59.94  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       72.19    75.00    60.32    56.25  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    66.67    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08  
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-1-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-1-4 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

On the DP monitor, it’ll say “Display Port NO SIGNAL” when blank, with this message popping up infrequently hinting at opensuse attempting to send output then failing.

I have 2 Geforce GTX 970s and use the nouveau driver. Here are their entries from ‘lspci -v’. They are the only VGA compatible controllers that appear - no integrated graphics are detected though my CPU does have them: Intel i5-4670k


james@linux-lgti: lspci -v
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 [GeForce GTX 770] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device 2835
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 30
    Memory at f6000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128]
    Memory at e8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32]
    I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128]
    Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
    Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
    Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
    Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
    Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024 <?>
    Capabilities: [900] #19
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 [GeForce GTX 770] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1033
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 33
    Memory at f4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
    Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128]
    Memory at d8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32]
    I/O ports at d000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at f5000000 [disabled] [size=512]
    Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
    Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
    Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
    Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
    Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024 <?>
    Capabilities: [900] #19
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau

I’ve thought about using the proprietary drivers, but I’ve heard they can cause a lot of problems. I mostly use this installation for programming, so I just want something that’ll work most of the time. I had the same problems with LEAP, so I upgraded (clean install) because I thought it may be some out-of-date packages.[/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size]