DisplayPort monitor stays black if not connected and online during power-up
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Hi,
I migrated my pfsense hardware to a LES Network+ device. Works like a charm. However I noticed one strange problem. The LES Network+ "only" has two DisplayPort outputs (no VGA or HDMI). I connected my monitor after pfsense booted and the display simply stayed black (and went into power save). I suspect the monitor or cable but it turned out both are ok.
If the monitor is connected and powered on DURING PFSENSE BOOTUP everything is fine. I can turn off the monitor and later on turn it on again. No worries. So long as it was turned on during boot up.
I contacted the vendor and the manufacturer came back with the message "we are aware of this and this happens if the OS has no VGA driver installed".
We do found the DP display doesn’t have any picture if we install it after boot the system of PFsense 2.5.4.
We have discussed with the BIOS engineer about this, I am afraid this problem can’t be solved by BIOS, since PFsense only has basic model, doesn’t support VGA driver.
This sounds rather spooky. Can anyone here make sense of it? And yes I installed the VGA image and not the serial console image. :-)
Regards
JP -
@j-koopmann I think that will happen with any OS.
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Not sure it applies 100%, but there is the same issue with Raspberry Pi. The OS tests if HDMI is connected, if not found it does not enable the port. VGA does not have the test so the OS may turn on VGA as the last resort. For things without VGA, Pi4 in my case, no display. On the Pi there is a way to set the default, but I do not know if that works with FreeBSD.
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Yup, if you need 'hot plug' you generally need the active graphics drivers. But loading them brings in a bunch of other stuff that may or may not cause more problems then they solve. And they may not be available for that box.
What is the PCI-ID of the vga device shown by
pciconf -lv?Steve
