System behaves weird when the monitor is turned off

Ask Fedora
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1

Hey! When I turn off my monitor by using the physical button on it, then turn it back on, I see some weird changes like these:

  1. Blue light filter stops working on X11.
  2. The running game or sometimes programs (very rarely) crashes or freezes for no reason.
  3. Any third party game installers on Lutris or something else crashes or freezes.
  4. System becomes unusable if the system was under heavy load when turning the monitor off. Need to reboot in order to make it usable again.

And so on. Problems persists on both Wayland and X11. Here is a video of the problem.

Have anyone faced this kind of strange issue? I wonder how the system knows if the monitor is turned on or not and behaves according to that. Hereā€™s my system info:

Operating System: Fedora Linux 38
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.108.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10
Kernel Version: 6.4.11-200.fc38.x86_64 (64-bit)
Processors: 4 Ɨ AMD Ryzen 3 3200G with Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory: 13.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Product Name: MS-7C52
System Version: 1.0
2

I do think monitors and graphics interfaces are more than just a pipe of media info. There is certainly enough resources at the level of the interface to be smart about the connection. So I just gotta ask, why are you unplugging your monitor while youā€™re in the middle of using it for something?

3

Iā€™m not unplugging it. Iā€™m just turning it off by pressing the power button of the monitor, as I said in the post. And why? Well, when Iā€™m installing or downloading something, I think itā€™s thereā€™s no need for the monitor to stay awake.

4

You could just put the display to ā€œblankā€ after inactivity like normal.
Power button or unplug, turning off then on or unplugging then plugging back in, it will still generate an event that the system will need to respond to. The monitor will also have behaviour depending on whether a signal is present or not. In any case, when you are turning it back on, it (the monitor and system separately) will need to adjust to the now ā€œnewā€ connection. There will very likely be randomly generated artifacts on your screen.

1 Like
5

Iā€™m sorry but can you elaborate? What do you mean by putting the display to ā€œblankā€?

Btw, Iā€™ve added a video in the post, you can check that if needed.

6

In the settings of the desktop you chose to use (ie Gnome/KDE/Sway), you should be able to set a timer for inactivity that will have an option to blank the screen, so no output going to it. Your monitor will take this as an opportunity to go to low power mode and wait for signal of activity to ā€œcome back upā€. This setting is usually in the Display section but may be in the Power Management section like Gnome has it. I think the normal default for Gnome is 5 minutes of inactivity and screen blanks.

7

Oh that thing. Iā€™ve used that before but thatā€™s not a solution tbh. If sometime I need to turn the screen off immediately, then Iā€™ve nothing to do except rebooting the program or the entire system. So itā€™s better to have a solution :slight_smile:

8

That function doesnā€™t, or shouldnā€™t lead to rebooting or restarting a program.
Besides you can manually blank your screen at any time in a couple of ways.

  1. At the top right of the screen is the power button for the desktop, click on it
  2. Select the Power Button and click on it
  3. Select either Suspend or Log Out
  4. On return, click on user and either enter password to cancel Suspend or Log In as your user and whatever was running will be running still
9

There are two kinds of ways to know:

  1. The GPU request the EDID from the monitor. This is supposed to work even when the monitor has no power. No EDID can mean an other of spec monitor or nothing connected.
  2. Sense the electrical impedence (I think) on the wires to monitor. When the monitor is power on its impedence changes in a detectable way.
10

It cannot request and receive EDID data when the monitor is powered off since the monitor must be active to relay that data. It can sense that the cable is connected. As soon as the monitor is powered on the PC requests & gets the EDID data so it can configure the ā€˜newā€™ device just detected.

This process can interfere with earlier configured connections for that monitor so it does not surprise me that the OP is seeing what he terms as ā€˜weird behaviorā€™. After all the way he powers it off and on is not what most users would consider normal.

1 Like
11

Why powering off the monitor isnā€™t normal? Itā€™s pretty normal and when downloading something or Iā€™m not seating in front of my PC. Why canā€™t I just turn my monitor off then? It works perfectly on other OSes.

And even, it works perfectly on live environment of Fedora!

12

The power comes from the GPU not the monitor.
The EDID is often held in a 1 wire chip that needs very little power.

I must say that I have not checked with USB-c what it does, but this was true in the DP and earlier connectors.

13

I found that itā€™s an old KDE Plasma issue. Need to switch desktop environment.