External monitor not detected on 13.04 on a Dell XPS 13 via Mini DP

Question

I upgraded my Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop from 12.04 to 13.04 and now it seems the Mini Display Port isn't working at all. I've tried using an Apple-branded Mini DP to VGA adaptor and a generic Mini DP to HDMI adaptor and neither is detected. Here's my terminal output:

hellocatfood@computerfood:~$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
eDP1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 294mm x 165mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     40.0  
   1680x1050      60.0     59.9  
   1600x1024      60.2  
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1360x768       59.8     60.0  
   1152x864       60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Any suggestions for making this work are very welcome!

Solution 1

did have the same pb : this was due to a file "60-plugable.conf" in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d which included a restricted X11 setup. By removing that file (move it to a safe place in case you are scared...) and rebooting all went fine again.

Solution 2

Mine possibly exhibits similar behaviour. When I boot up, it gets as far as the login screen on the external monitor, then when I log in, the monitor goes blank and it switches back to the laptop display. I've found if I unplug and plug in the DisplayPort at this point (or turn the monitor off and on again), the display then switches from the laptop screen to the external monitor.

Don't know whether this will help you, as I've installed Kubuntu desktop on mine, and Unity might behave a bit differently, but it's worth a try.

Out of interest, did you upgrade to 13.04 due to 12.04 stability issues on XPS13?

Comments

[Dominik Goltermann]

i have exactly the same problem, everything was running fine with ubuntu 12.04 now with 13.04 none of my monitors are detected anymore :(

[hellocatfood]

I just upgraded 'cause I could. I've actually had more problems since upgrading!