[DELL M4800] Display output not working

  • Hi all!

    I bought a Synology NAS but it's not powerful enough to transcode video to my Raspberry Pi3b so I took my old laptop and put LibreElec on it.

    However I can't get HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA working.

    I changed the Wifi adapter which is fully working in MacOS Catalina on another partition. However I can't select a wireless network in Kodi.

    HDMI, DP and VGA:

    Edited once, last by denisuu: I removed the WIFI part because it's working, there's a physical Airplane mode switch on the device. (February 18, 2020 at 1:14 PM).

  • Download a full Linux, like Ubuntu, and run it in "live" mode. If everything works, look for the loaded driver modules, and try to load them on LE.

    I think that's a good way to figure out the usability of an "old laptop".

    Thanks for the quick reply!

    It turns out I was just ignorant regarding the WIFI, there's a physical Airplane-mode on the device. Ubuntu "live" told me to disable it, when I turned the switch of WIFI was working in LibreElec

    Everything works in Ubuntu, I also installed Kodi on top to test. All output is working, HDMI which I will be using is displayed as DP-3 in Kodi.

    I'm not sure which module I need and how I load them in LibreElec? This is the output of 'lsmod' could you point me in the right direction?

  • Code
    Hello. Question on the same topic.
    I bought a laptop Dell PRECISION M4800. Does not work external monitor via HDMI port. Apparently I can’t figure out the drivers, please drop the link to the driver. In other aspects, the laptop is very good.
  • Hello. Question on the same topic.

    Why are you putting your text in a code tag..?

    I bought a laptop Dell PRECISION M4800.

    That is a laptop with a NVIDIA Quadro® graphics card. And possibly not supported by the regular Nvidia graphics drivers.

    And also, it's not very polite to "hijack" someone else's forum thread for your own problem computer. Next time simply create your own forum topic.

  • That's the relevant driver modules on Ubuntu:

    video 49152 3 dell_wmi,dell_laptop,nouveau

    Try to load the "nouveau" driver on LE. My research says the driver has issues with Kodi, so it's probably not available on LE for good reasons.

    PS: If "nouveau" isn't on LE, it could be a good idea to stay with Ubuntu. When you autostart Kodi on it, you maybe have all you need.

  • Cheers for the help guys, I really appreciate it!

    I'm not sure if I even need the Nvidia-card enabled?

    In the BIOS there's an option to turn off switchable graphics, the processor i7-4800MQ (Intel HD Graphics 4600) should be powerful enough to HEVC trans-coding I guess? I'll try disabling that option when I get home.

    Dibmb5xUEAAxfom.jpg

    The Dell M4800 is one of the few laptops left that has fully natively supported Nvidia card in MacOS so I don't want disable the Nvidia-card completely in BIOS. On my main laptop I've disabled the Nvidia card with DSDT patches since the card is not supported on MacOS, maybe it's possible to do something similar in Linux to force output through Intel HD graphics?

  • Yes, disable the eGPU in BIOS. You have a good chance to run LE with the iGPU.

    I tried with switchable graphics on and off, neither work.

    LE does not use nouveau. If you can boot a normal Linux distro and find the pci bus device IDs we can cross-check against nvidia drivers.

    What info do you need?

    I attached the output of:

    lspci
    cat /proc/bus/pci/devices

    ACPI dumps from Clover Bootloader

    Can I install this somehow?

    NVIDIA DRIVERS Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver

  • It's working but I'm very confused now.


    I Googled how to disable the dGPU in Linux. Found the following post: /r/Linux - Complete disable of discrete GPU

    So I did the following commands and rebooted.

    Code
    LibreELEC:~ # cd /etc/modprobe.d/
    LibreELEC:~/.config/modprobe.d # echo blacklist nouveau > blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf

    After the reboot I was able to select DP-0. and it actually works! But Nvidia is still showing under Audio output devices (not a bad thing)

    The output of lsmod was exactly the same as before adding the file, I figured it might've been chance. So I deleted the .conf file and rebooted again. HDMI output was still working... To be sure I re-installed LibreElec completely to test if HDMI would still work if it was the cable or chance... After a clean install HDMI did not work until I added the blacklist file.

    Quite strange I don't have to disable the dGPU by harware-address...

  • Blacklist the nouveau driver like this:

    • mount -o remount,rw /flash
    • Open the config file by editor with nano /flash/syslinux.cfg
    • Edit the append line like this:
    Code
    APPEND boot=UUID=<YOUR_BOOT_UUID> disk=UUID=<YOUR_DISK_UUID> quiet initcall_blacklist=nouveau
    • Store the config file by key combo STRG + O
    • Leave the editor by key combo STRG + X

    If this doesn't work, try nouveau_init instead of nouveau at the append line.

    It's not tested by me, I'm just an RPi user./shrug

  • Blacklist the nouveau driver like this:

    • mount -o remount,rw /flash
    • Open the config file by editor with nano /flash/syslinux.cfg
    • Edit the append line like this:
    Code
    APPEND boot=UUID=<YOUR_BOOT_UUID> disk=UUID=<YOUR_DISK_UUID> quiet initcall_blacklist=nouveau
    • Store the config file by key combo STRG + O
    • Leave the editor by key combo STRG + X

    If this doesn't work, try nouveau_init instead of nouveau at the append line.

    It's not tested by me, I'm just an RPi user./shrug

    Sorry for the late response, that seems to work thanks!

    So HDMI seems to work without any modifications as long as the laptops lid is closed. When the lid is open and the internal screen is on, there's no output on any of the ports. If I reboot and close the laptop, HDMI and Display Port are working. By blacklisting nouveau in syslinux I can boot the laptop even with the laptop open and the internal screen on, it outputs though HDMI & DP once booted.

    I've been a Raspberry Pi user for years, it just sucks my Rpi3b+ can't handle H265 and I don't want to buy a rpi4 or a TVbox.