Ubuntu – How to switch display from laptop to external monitor

We use a lot of Lenovo's in our business but most have a Nvidia display card as opposed to an Intel like the X200. We use a secondary external monitor as the primary monitor and in the beginning experienced the same problem as you are currently experiencing.

The way we resolved the problems was a two step process, firstly in the BIOS under Display, Graphic Device we changed 'Integrated' to 'Discrete'. Then secondly, and unfortunately this is where the solution veers off your path, is that we downloaded & installed the latest drivers from the Nvidia website, this provided an additional Nvidia configuration utility like the one you would find in Windows and the management of primary & secondary monitors was easily achieved.

That's about all I have for you unfortunately, there are a few additional settings under the Display heading in the BIOS that may also help.

Best of luck.

milo

I had the same problem with the same laptop, and I "fixed" it by turning on the laptop with the monitor unplugged, and then plug in the monitor once logged in only.