Created attachment 14548 [details]
Textual nonsense screenshot

Laptop is HP nx9105 with nVidia NV17 [GeForce4 450 Go 32M] rev.a3
Internal/External monitor switching dosen't work properly, so that it renders laptop useless for presentation purposes.

Distributions tested: Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty, 7.10 Gutsy, Debian Etch, Debian Lenny (Testing) and Fedora Core 8.

External monitor only starts in the case it is already plugged in during startup. It runs then in "both" mode. However, when login screen (GDM) is displayed, display is switched to external-only mode. There's no way out of this, known for me.

If external monitor is NOT plugged in during startup, and only plugged in after login, it is ignored. It only activates on shutdown.


With Gutsy, it looks like this:

With distributional nvidia driver:
If the external monitor is plugged in during startup, it works, even Ubuntu startup logo is OK, until the graphical mode (GDM) is started. Then, blinking textual nonsense is displayed on the external monitor. Fn-F4 seems to switch to internal-only, then external-only. When both-monitors is enabled again, the image on internal LCD is garbled. Seems narrowed by 1/3 and overlayed on right side.
Interestingly, when the screen is blanked during inactivity, and then restored (e.q. by moving a mouse), the textual nonse on external monitor is greyscaled.
When rebooting, text mode is entered, so that external monitor can be read again, however if it faded to the greyscale before, the text is also grey, with limited visibility.

See pictures attached.

With propietary nvidia driver, the Fn-F4 dosen't really do anything.

However, if the external monitor is plugged in during startup, the laptop starts in external-only mode, while is external is not plugged during startup, it starts with internal-only.