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I have a Zenbook UX303U with integrated Intel HD5000, and using an external monitor worked fine until I updated to Ubuntu 16.04LTS this weekend. Now, when I plug my second screen and then move the mouse cursor to the laptop's screen, the computer freezes: the mouse, touchpad and keyboard become unresponsive, I'm unable to access a terminal with Ctrl + Alt + F1 - 6 shortcut, and any open ssh connections to my laptop are lost. All I can do is hard reboot the computer.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems and figured out a solution?

kelvinelove
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Louis-Rémi
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  • Not a solution, but my two-monitor laptop freezes so often that I have installed an OpenSSH server on it. When it freezes I login to the laptop from my phone (using the JuiceSSH app), and restart lightdm using sudo systemctl restart lightdm.service. It's inconvenient but better than a hard reboot. By the way, left-Alt + SysRq + B also reboots the system. – Jos Apr 25 '16 at 12:12
  • I tried updating my Intel drivers but the Intel Graphics Installer wouldn't run as it's not yet compatible with Ubuntu 16.04. I followed this tutorial https://allanbogh.com/2016/01/05/ubuntu-16-04-installing-the-intel-graphics-drivers-using-the-intel-graphics-installer-for-linux/ and was able to update the drivers anyway, but the problem persists :-/ – Louis-Rémi Apr 25 '16 at 12:14
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    I have the exact same problem, in every detail, except I'm on a Lenovo Thinkpad T460. My graphics chipset is therefore Intel HD Graphics 520 Mobile, i5 6200U. – Jonathan Hartley Apr 25 '16 at 20:24
  • Same problem here with a T460s. It worked like a charm this morning but the PC froze over my lunch break. After that I was not able to get the system running with the external screen over HDMI. However, at the moment I use the screen via DVI. That works as long as I don't change the resolution of the laptop's screen. – phx Apr 26 '16 at 14:08
  • Actually, everything works as long as I don't fiddle with the resolution of one of the screens. I just used a presenter with HDMI and everything worked till I tried to mirror the screens (then in freezed). I also cannot use the HDMI cable on the docking station anymore, because the config automatically reduces my laptops resolution. DVI works because I didn't change anything. So -- at least for me -- the freezes are caused by resolution-related changes. – phx Apr 26 '16 at 16:03
  • I don't know if this is useful, but I eventually tracked down my driver name, which is given by sudo lshw -C video. It says configuration: driver=i915_bpo – Jonathan Hartley Apr 26 '16 at 19:21
  • Exact same issue here - Zenbook UX305UA (Ubuntu 16.04, i5-6200U). Connect second display and freeze as soon as I start using the touchpad. – Jan Groth Apr 26 '16 at 20:43
  • @JonathanHartley I also have the same driver=i915_bpo running. – phx Apr 27 '16 at 06:23
  • Just to let you know, I still experience crashes some time after I re-log into the system (i.e., complete freezes). So something is crooked here. – phx Apr 27 '16 at 10:50
  • Does anyone know the correct place where we could search to see if this bug has already been reported (or report it if it hasn't)? – Jonathan Hartley Apr 27 '16 at 11:58
  • I guess the place to find/report this bug would be here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/. There are a few that look similar (e.g. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1565526), but I haven't yet found one that looks exactly like it. Am I right to think that, since our problem requires a hard power cycle (i.e. cannot ctrl-alt-f1 to get to virtual terminals) this means it isn't just an Xorg hang or crash, but that the whole kernel has crashed? – Jonathan Hartley Apr 27 '16 at 16:01
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    @all I think I have found it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1559308. This bug contains a comment with a syslog attached, and that syslog contains a traceback which is identical to the traceback I have in my syslog from the morning I had an external monitor attached and saw this problem. I suspect Ubuntu bugs are partly prioritized by number of users reporting they also have the problem, so please go there, register, click the 'me too' button, and add any useful info you have. Thanks! – Jonathan Hartley Apr 27 '16 at 18:31
  • @JonathanHartley Thanks! Let's see what happens. – phx Apr 27 '16 at 20:20
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    Ok, it seems as Intel has just 'forgotten' to make their newest drivers available. That's why they are not included in 16.04. There is a German article on that available here: http://goo.gl/mkfAWB (translation: https://goo.gl/Cm18Kv). It mainly describes the (much bigger) issues with the Iris-550 GPU. However, they acknowledge that the missing driver patches might also affect users with HD 510 and HD 535 GPUs (so I guess also the HD 520 one). Let's hope the Ubuntu developers integrate the already available patch as soon as possible. Maybe there is a temporary work around? – phx Apr 29 '16 at 08:29
  • @all to those who have this issue on your laptop, please try the test kernel in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1559308/comments/44, this can help ubuntu developer to debug the issue and fix it properly in ubuntu kernel, thanks. – Anthony Wong May 13 '16 at 09:57

2 Answers2

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Update of kernel to 4.4.8-wily will solve the problem. It works fine with Intel® HD Graphics 520, so I assume that it should help to all Skylake graphics cards. Instalation instructions here: http://linuxdaddy.com/blog/install-kernel-4-4-on-ubuntu/

Yevgen
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The DELL D620 laptop (Intel graphics), with the 4.4.0-47-generic kernel also freezes with dual monitors.

There seems to be no problem if the second monitor is connected after successful startup with laptop-screen only, with the second monitor configured above laptop-monitor.

Manual configuration-command:

xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024 --rate 60 --primary --output LVDS1 --mode 1280x800 --rate 60 --below VGA1

There also seems to be no problem with dual monitor, if both monitors are configured with the same size.

I solved the problem by using script I found here

Replace --fbmm with --mode within this script, and add:

sleep 5
xrandr --output VGA1 --off

before the line containing [ -n "$1" ] && sleep $1

If script is started with parameter 20, it will first turn off the second monitor after 5 seconds and then restore both screens after 20 seconds without problem.

Zanna
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gert kraats
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