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    Video blank when hooking monitor back up.....

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @jsmiddleton4
      last edited by

      @jsmiddleton4 said in Video blank when hooking monitor back up.....:

      Wish I had a more exact time frame for when the hdmi port becomes inactive.

      If that's the issue you are hitting it effectively becomes inactive at boot. The behaviour is that the video console is fine as long as a monitor is connected at boot. If there is no monitor connected at boot the port becomes inactive and connecting a monitor at some later stage will show nothing.

      Steve

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      • J
        jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
        last edited by jsmiddleton4

        @stephenw10

        The monitor is connected at boot. At least was at some point. When I disconnect the monitor it always has the console/menu display when I turn off the monitor prior to disconnecting its HDMI cable. Then over time the signal on the HDMI port drops. I’ve tried unplugging/replugging the HDMI cable into the PC’s port thinking it’s wake up. Didn’t.

        For now the two .local tweaks seem to be the answer.

        If the “unsupported” tweak lets the end user select display resolutions beyond the default I don’t need that.

        If the two .local tweaks don’t fix it I have a VGA cable to try.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          The 'unsupported' variable allows the driver to attach to the chipset hardware in some systems, notably in the Minnowboard turbot.
          It should be a pretty obvious change in the boot sequence if it's being used.

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          • J
            jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
            last edited by jsmiddleton4

            @stephenw10

            I don’t see any change. Probably don’t need it.

            Edit: I have to take that back. The display is different, significantly better. Text better and the entire screen is being used instead of mostly just the left hand side.

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            • J
              jsmiddleton4 @jsmiddleton4
              last edited by

              Success.

              Removed the "modes" line from .local and of course booted last night. Monitor off, unplugged cable.

              This is my wife's work at home work station and I'm not able to leave the cable connected between her monitor and the PFSense PC.

              Plugged back in this morning. Boom, PFSense console all nice and crisp text wishing me a good morning.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Nice, sounds like you were hitting that then.

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                  jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10

                  One more "to do" matter addressed for the PFSense Router. Gotta tell you that this software is free blows my mind.

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                  • J
                    jsmiddleton4
                    last edited by jsmiddleton4

                    Interesting that these two lines were not in my syslog prior to adding the i915 tweak in .local.

                    Not deleting the line. Monitor is doing great. Just interesting.

                    I of course don't have AMD anything in my PFSense Intel PC box.

                    AMD Features2=0x1<LAHF>
                    AMD Features=0x28000800<SYSCALL,RDTSCP,LM>

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                    • J
                      jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10

                      This reads like a who's buried in Grant's Tomb kinda question but....

                      If I put in a stand alone video card, NVIDIA 210 for free, remove the i915 tweaks, or REM them with #?

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        It will probably work. It would depend on the motherboard/BIOS auto selecting it for console output over the built in device. Most do that.

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                          jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          It'll work. I've checked.

                          Just wondering about the i915 entries in loader.conf.local is all.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Oh, yeah remove them. You don't want to load that driver if you don't need it, takes up valuable kernel memory.

                            Steve

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                            • J
                              jsmiddleton4 @stephenw10
                              last edited by jsmiddleton4

                              @stephenw10

                              I may not use it. It fits my design goal, free. Totally not needed. And I'm not all that eager to have a video card fan start squealing. The box is in a work at home office.

                              Someone gave me an electric boat trolling motor. I'm looking at connecting it to the battery in the PFSense box UPS. Stick the propeller into the case. Cool that sucker DOWN.

                              There'd have to be some tweak to the NUT package though.

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