Getting external monitor to work

I have Qubes 4.0.4 installed on my laptop and I’m trying to connect a basic 1920x1080 external monitor.

When I use the HDMI port on my laptop nothing happens. The monitor doesn’t receive a signal and there is no indication in Qubes that a cable has been plugged in.

I also have a USB-C port which I use to connect to ethernet through a dongle. When I connect the usb-c to ethernet dongle it shows up in my ‘Quebs Devices’ and I don’t have to attach it to anything it starts working immediately and I have wired internet. I assume this is because during installation I checked the box to use sys-net for both networking and usb devices.

I purchased a usb-c to hdmi dongle and while the dongle is detected I still don’t get an image on my external monitor.

Does anyone know how to get my external monitor working? If necessary I can stop using sys-net for usb devices and created a dedicated usb qube (I couldn’t before because wifi wasn’t working and needed usb-c to ethernet but wifi is working now)

thanks!

This sounds strange to me, because my external hdmi monitor works fine without any configuration. Does your monitor work with a different OS on this laptop?

Yes I used Ubuntu before this and it worked perfectly. I’ve tried two different HDMI cables both worked with Ubuntu but not with Qubes. My monitor has this little light that turns orange when it’s in standby and yellow when the monitor is active. Plugging in the HDMI cable into my laptop does nothing, the monitor remains in standby.

Might it be because I have an AMD CPU? The documentation says that Intel is preferred after all.

Ok, I’ve found out what the problem is, it is in fact my AMD cpu:

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Just a suggestion: if you encountered difficulties with HDMI connection - and you have the option - maybe trying an alternative that alters the HDMI portion. I resolved an intermittent black screen issue a while back with a mere HDMI-VGA adapter - which may sound unusual but I can vouch for the success (nothing changed but the cable). The problem plagued me for a while before trying this (some might even doubt the original HDMI cable being good but that’s a matter of conjecture even for you as I never had any trouble with it separately) & it immediately was cured by making this change. Anything that sufficiently insulates the setup from the opportunity for HDMI to fail would likely work here.

Hmm, maybe that would work but then my monitor doesn’t have a VGA port… And I just want my HDMI port to work so I can plug my laptop in to my tv or beamer or whatever.

The thing is, adapting around the HDMI portion so maybe a HDMI to DVI or HDMI to Displayport might help.

On my previous computer the external monitor had to be plugged in
before booting Qubes OS to be detected. Plugging it in after boot had
no effect.

Maybe try that?

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Tried it but it doesn’t work. No response whatsoever. The problem really is my AMD and the solution is detailed here: Missing amdgpu firmware for AMD Renoir APU's

But I will need a little bit of hand holding or I risk breaking my system.