I have a Thinkpad W520 laptop with Nvidia Quadro 1000M graphics running Debian testing (“wheezy”) and Nvidia driver version 295.40-1. The graphics mode is set to discrete in the BIOS. I would like to use the DisplayPort to connect to a HDMI monitor. The display driver does not recognize that a monitor is attached. The monitor displays “no signal” – as opposed to “no cable” when nothing is connected to it.
I use a passive DisplayPort→HDMI adapter (No name “DA050”). I have tried with two different devices, a TV and a monitor, with the same results. nvidia-settings only shows the internal display:
$ nvidia-settings -q ConnectedDisplays -d
Attribute 'ConnectedDisplays' (hostname:0.0): DFP-0.
The graphical version of nvidia-settings also shows no reaction when pressing the »Detect Displays« button.
A different laptop is able to output HDMI to the monitor using the same cable. VGA output with a dual-screen setup works fine. I have tried cold booting both with the monitor attached and disconnected. I don’t have another DisplayPort device to check whether the adapter works.
Does this combination of hardware generally work in Linux? Is there any option to the Nvidia driver to force output to the DisplayPort? Anything else I could try?
Update: It doesn’t work in Windows 7 with current Nvidia drivers (296.35), either.
Best Answer
Bad adapter.
In the meantime I got a different Displayport-to-HDMI adapter. Video output works with the same laptop and monitor.
The software versions are now Linux 4.6 and Nvidia driver 361.45.18, just in case it was a driver issue after all.
I haven’t tried audio output.