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Ubuntu Detects 2 monitors when I only have 1. This causes an issue when booting up because it's detecting 2 monitors and by default it is mirroring the display; which is causing a distorted picture since it's trying to create a mirror image on 1 display. xrandr output.... The VGA1 is the phantom monitor and I need to remove it so it boots to LVDS1 and NOT mirrored.

Any suggestions on how to permanently remove VGA1?

:~$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3 56.2
848x480 60.0
640x480 59.9
LVDS1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1920x1080 59.6*+
1680x1050 60.0 59.9
1600x1024 60.2
1400x1050 60.0
1280x1024 60.0
1440x900 59.9
1280x960 60.0
1360x768 59.8 60.0
1152x864 60.0
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3 56.2
640x480 59.9 
Meer Borg
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    xrandr --output VGA1 --off should disable VGA1, xrandr --output VGA1 --auto should bring it back. If this solved the problem leave a comment and I'll add an answer. Otherwise issue lspci | grep -i vga and post the results. – Alex Apr 19 '13 at 04:54
  • Looks like it didn't work – HomeTheaterGuy Apr 19 '13 at 16:35
  • root@# lspci | grep -i vga 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) – HomeTheaterGuy Apr 19 '13 at 16:36
  • My computer is a Gateway ZX6800 touch-screen – HomeTheaterGuy Apr 19 '13 at 16:39
  • This is the fix: Edit /etc/default/grub, adding "video=VGA-1:d" between the quotes in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line

    sudo update-grub

    FIXED! Thanks for your help!!!

    – HomeTheaterGuy Apr 19 '13 at 17:01
  • it works for me. i have in my notebook DELL L502X screen LVDS1, then external screen in displayport HDMI1 and finally unknown display VGA-1-2. whatever i have change in /etc/default/grub the line in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX "video=VGA-1:d" and in monitor settings disappear the unknown display. thanks –  May 12 '14 at 09:54

4 Answers4

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This seems to be an issue with certain motherboards that have an HDMI and a Display Port. I figured out that either my Gateway ZX6800 Touch-Screen is using a certain Laptop motherboard with the on-board Intel HD chipset that supports this or it is seeing the IR Blaster or TV Tuner and driving it as a monitor.

Either way the fix is: Edit /etc/default/grub add "video=VGA-1:d" between the quotes in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line update-grub

Look in /sys/class/drm for a list of your computers outputs.Mine was labelled as "card0-VGA-1". Just remove the "card0-" and that's the name of the output in question.

2

Based on the solution of Matthew Aylard above, I checked the connected cards:

ls /sys/class/drm

The output was like this:

card0  card0-DP-1  card0-HDMI-A-1  card0-LVDS-1  card0-VGA-1  card1  card1-VGA-2  renderD128  renderD129  ttm  version

Then I checked

xrandr -q

Turned out in my case, VGA-1-2 was wrongly detected as my second screen which caused the this issue. So, I edited grub configuration file:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

And added two lines to disable both VGA-1 and VGA-2:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=VGA-1:d"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=VGA-2:d"

Finally, updated grub:

sudo update-grub

And after reboot, the second "unknown" display which has been there for years, was gone!

2

I had similar issue with an integrated Intel HD graphics unit (JUSTOP G-PC iA8 Desktop) and missing mouse pointer.

I thought I would add additional help..

to get the correct video to disable...

ls /sys/class/drm

note the name that is similar to the output from

xrandr -q

e.g. my connected (but non existent extra screen was DSI1 in xrandr but card0-DSI-1 in /sys/class/drm)

based on this information the correct kernal data from /sys/class/drm I was then able to correct the syntax in my...

/etc/default/grub

file to read

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=DSI-1:d"

then ran

sudo update-grub

and rebooted, now only one HDMI screen connected and working mouse. Hope this helps other people.

1

I have what seems to be a similar problem on pop!_OS (based on Ubuntu 19.10),

Adding "video=VGA-1:d" or "video=VGA-1-2:d" (which what seemed to be connected in the xrandr command) didn't solve it.

I used the Fn+(select screen) function in the keyboard to chose the built in only display. And that solved the issue.

Hope this helps someone.

Baha
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