Re:Graphics 520 after sleep/hibernate sometimes stops working with Displayport MST hub

ThomasS · ‎09-22-2020

This computer has been persnickety with my three monitor setup ever since like 3 days after I set it up (Just enough time for it to feel awesome and then annoy you endlessly).

Dell Inc. Latitude 7280

Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 - Version 27.20.100.8587 8/5/2020

3x Dell U2415 Displays

It is worth noting I originally tried daisy chaining these displays, which worked for about 3 days but every time the displays go to sleep and wake there is a dice roll windows would think they are 640x480 displays and lose its **bleep** and it was a huge pain to fix in device manager and hot plugging cables. I have not tested this configuration in over 6 months and will not mention it again.

My current setup is:

Dell Inc. Latitude 7280

usbc to displayport alt-mode adapter

displayport selector (my seperate desktop has an Nvidia graphics card and works well considering NVidia doesn't seem to have UEFI drivers so I can't see boot screens)

CableMatters displayport booster

Monoprice 4port displayport MST hub

3x Foinnex Displayport to HDMI active converters

3x Dell U2415 Displays

This combination works most of the time. However sometimes when the laptop wakes from sleep/hibernate the display adapter seems to lose its mind. Unplugging the hub and plugging a single hdmi adapter into the booster works fine. Plugging the hub back in, no dice. The only fix I've found is to completely reboot the laptop, not even shutdown and start again seems to work (Apparently windows saves driver state when you shutdown instead of reboot). Also interesting, if you remove all display devices while plugged into a single monitor and swap to the hub and then back to the single display windows knew there were 3 displays while the hub was connected.

Possibly unrelated, during boot the displays only sometimes wake until it gets fully booted into windows. This is annoying on the bitlocker screen because sometimes it is shown on all three monitors and sometimes it is shown on just a random one and often it is shown on none of them. So you have to blindly enter the bitlocker password then when it gets to windows login all the displays come to life. I feel like this might just be because the UEFI Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 driver doesn't speak MST and so if the hub doesn't get reset when the laptop hibernates then the display data doesn't get sent to the right place when it wakes.

AndrewG_Intel · ‎09-23-2020

Hello ThomasS

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

In order to understand better your environment, could you please provide the following information?

1- Very detailed explanation on how all the devices are connected one another. Please include details about orden of connection, cables, connector types on both side of the connection, steps to replicate, etc. It is very important for us to clearly understand how this has been set up. You may also share diagram, pictures or a video ilustrating and explaining your environment.

2- Besides these devices: "(1)CableMatters displayport booster, (2)Monoprice 4port displayport MST hub, (3) Foinnex Displayport to HDMI active converters" when you mentioned "usbc to displayport alt-mode adapter", do you mean an additional and different component/adapter on your setup that does not refers to the previous one?

Also, when you said "displayport selector", does this mean you are also using a KVM Switch? Please elaborate more on these details.

3- It seems that the monitors come with DisplayPort™ ports so we would like to understand better why you are using the "Foinnex Displayport to HDMI active converters" and what is their purpose or role on your setup.

4- How many displays are you tring to use at a time? For instance, is it only the 3 external displays with the laptop's built-in display turned off?

5- What is the display resolution and refresh rates that you are trying to achive or have set?

6- With all the displays connected, please run DxDiag* report following these steps:

In the keyboard, press WinLogo key + R.
In the Run box please type dxdiag and hit Enter.
Click on Save All Information.
Open the report.
Use the option "save all information" to save the .TXT file.

7- Also, please run the Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU) and attach the report to this thread to gather more details about your system.

Download the Intel® SSU and save the application on your computer: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows-
Open the application, check the "Everything" checkbox, and click "Scan" to see the system and device information. The Intel® SSU defaults to the "Summary View" on the output screen following the scan. Click the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".
To save your scan, click Next and click Save.

Note: To upload and attach a file, use the "Drag and drop here or browse files to attach" dialog below the edit box.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

ThomasS · ‎09-23-2020

Connections in order:

3x Dell U2415 Displays

3x HDMI to HDMI cables

3x Foinnex Displayport to HDMI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GYJYIS0

4port Displayport MST Hub https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21970

Displayport 1.2 repeater https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D949F59

1ft displayport to displayport cable

Lindy displayport switch (Like a KVM but without the K and M) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZK2S71W

6ft Displayport to displayport cable

QGeeM usb-c to displayport alt-mode adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YDNSGY2

Dell Inc. Latitude 7280

*note: The displayport switch typically is only used on the weekend.

I have 3 external monitors attached, the laptop display is off (the lid is closed). Each monitor is 1920x1200 @ 59hz (default)

I am using the hdmi adapter because the displayport connection likes to spontaneously think the monitor is 640x480 after the display wakes from inactivity and requires uninstalling the monitors in device manager to correct it. This is a similar issue to what happens if I daisy chain the montiors with displayport to displayport cables directly off the QGeeM adapter.

I'm pretty sure the Displayport switch and repeater are not a factor as the computer should be unaware of them and I have no issue with the desktop Nvidia card, but the computers are under the desk so its not easy to test that.

I'll post the diag files in a seperate post.

ThomasS · ‎09-23-2020

Attached: Diagnostics

ThomasS · ‎09-23-2020

In case you care, this is the original setup I had a year ago but the Graphics 520 was really flaky with it. Windows frequently would think the displays were 640x480 and the graphics driver would get confused about the state of the MST hubs in the monitors showing non-sensical chains or not seeing some of the monitors. I would sometimes have to reinstall the driver to get it to recognize the monitors again. Sometimes it would lockup the monitor itself and I would have to power cycle them. It really made me sad about the state of displayport.

AndrewG_Intel · ‎09-25-2020

Hello ThomasS

Thank you very much for your response and very detailed information.

After checking this we would like to gather some additional reports to understand better how the displays are being recognized by the graphics controller. Using the current full configuration/full setup and all the connections (as the one on the first image you provided), please run 3 Reports for Intel® Graphics Drivers following the steps on the below link:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005848/graphics-drivers.html

Run one report with only 1 display, a second report with 2 displays connected, and a third report with all the 3 displays connected. Please name the reports accordingly (e.g. Report-1Display, Report-2Displays, Report-3Displays, etc.). Also, please let us know if you noticed any difference in behavior when using only 1 or 2 displays.

Chances are this could be a compatibility issue due to the amount of devices involved in this setup, and most important, due to the adapters being used. We understand you mentioned they work with other graphics controller. However, there is always the possibility for graphics related issues in those scenarios because we cannot test all of them, so we cannot guarantee that these are going to work and we do not recommend the use of any kind of adapters. For more information please refer to this link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000026412/graphics.html

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

AndrewG_Intel · ‎09-30-2020

Hello ThomasS

We are checking this thread and we would like to know if you were able to check our previous post. Please do not hesitate to contact us back.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

ThomasS · ‎10-01-2020

Sorry for the delay, took me a while to get the time to play with the cables.

I attached the requested logs, though I am not sure they tell you much about the MST aspect.

I included the following configurations in order:

3 monitors using the monoprice MST hub & hdmi adapters.

2 monitors using the monoprice MST hub & hdmi adapters.

1 monitors using the monoprice MST hub & hdmi adapter.

1 monitors using hdmi adapter (No hub).

1 monitors using displayport (No hub).

I continued trying:

2 monitors using displayport daisychained (Enabled DP1.2 mode in monitor): No picture, computer hanged until displayport unplugged. This might have worked after a reboot.

I went back to the original 3 monitor hdmi setup.

I tried going back to 1 monitor while experimenting with some remote control software and trying to get diagnostics when the screen was blank.

I went back to the original 3 monitor hdmi setup, except this time the screens were blank and after a few seconds the computer would hang until I unplugged the hub. After much fighting with it and going back and forth to one monitor which would work. I ended up going back to one monitor, starting a reboot, waited for it to shutdown and then swapped back to the hub and three monitors. Blindly entered the bitlocker code and then the displays came on at the login screen. 😕

AndrewG_Intel · ‎10-05-2020

Hello ThomasS

Thank you very much for your response and all the details provided. Please allow us to check this further and we will be posting back as soon as we have more details.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

AndrewG_Intel · ‎10-16-2020

Hello ThomasS

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

We have been reviewing this but since using all those adapters is unsupported from our end, we consider this is leading to the reported issue.

At this point, our recommendation is to use only 2 external displays, configurations, and see if it works. Also, if possible to check with only one external monitor attached at a time, to determine if the problem could be linked to one of them or a combination of them.

If issues still persist, we recommend contacting your computer manufacturer (OEM) to verify compatibility and valid configurations for this laptop.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

ThomasS · ‎10-16-2020

I anticipated as much. I'll keep using the three monitors and deal with the pain.

I do request however that, if you don't already, you include a 3 monitor displayport daisy chain in testing for future intel graphics products. You could even market it because business users would drool for more screen real estate that works reliably.

Then maybe when I replace this system in a couple years it will be amazing.

Regards,

Thomas

AndrewG_Intel · ‎10-16-2020

Hello ThomasS

Thank you very much for your response and feedback, it is really appreciated it.

We do understand your frustration; however, we are not able to test all the different video adapters in the market, hence, why we recommend using straight-through connections or validating the configurations with the original manufacturers (OEM).

Also, regarding daisy-chaining, it is worth mentioning that Intel® Graphics controllers do support it. Every Intel® Core™ processor from 4th generation and above supports MST (Multi-Stream Transport) via DisplayPort™ to DisplayPort™ only, up to three monitors with daisy-chaining or a DisplayPort™ hub.

Also, In most cases, the configuration options in the below link support three independent displays:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000025673/graphics.html

In this case, considering the issue has been happening for several months with both setups, and due to the number of adapters, cables, and devices involved, our recommendation is to check this further with your OEM to validate those configurations. There could be some sort of limitation from the OEM design. Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

AndrewG_Intel · ‎10-20-2020

Hello ThomasS

We have not heard back from you so we will proceed to close this thread now. If you need any additional information, please submit a new question as this thread will no longer being monitored.

Best regards,

Andrew G.

Intel Customer Support Technician