Just giggled as my last meme mentioned trouble with displays and appropriately, a large chunk of the replies were “well MY displays work just fine!” (And charmingly, many were thoughts of things to check, other distros etc. It’s a very kind community, though that may also be the fediverse.)


This is just a shot in the dark, but:
I recently learned enough about the differences between HDMI and DisplayPort to boil them down in my mind to “HDMI Bad. DisplayPort Good.”
Wild oversimplification, I know.
So now, whenever I have display issues of any kind, the first thing I do is upgrade the cable to a DisplayPort cable.
I mention this specifically because I have felt like my monitor wake and sleep behavior became more predictable.
Sorry, this idea really is mostly vibes. (Informed by my perception that HDMI has a crazy amount of control signaling which itself is proprietary and inconsistently implemented.)
But for the cost of an $8 cable, I feel like swapping in a DisplayPort has led to better display outcomes for me.
You know what, it is hdmi. That’s not a crazy idea. The ports are hdmi on both ends though, the monitor has a displayport but my desktop is using it and the mini pc has 2 hdmi outputs. I wonder if adapter-cable-adapter would do anything for me in that case.
Yes.
I’m always nervous about those little black-box mysterybadapters, but I have used them and had them be fine.
I don’t really know enough about how HDMI works to say if it helps as much as native DisplayPort at both ends.
I suspect it might help, since some DRM will fail open when it can’t negotiate a restriction. And I imagine those dongles require keeping things simple.
My use of the adapted setup has been rare - mostly due to not having many such adapters on hand when I’m setting things up.
Anyway, I feel a little bad passing on my superstition; but it seems to have helped me.
Worth a shot, I guess.