All Linux NVIDIA Drivers newer than 440.1 Duplicate / Split USB-C Video with a Green Line in-between

We have a Video Game running in Mint 19.3 (Kernel 5.4.0-70) on a B450 Mini-iTX Motherboard with 8GB DDR4 3200 memory, Ryzen 5 1600x CPU, 64GB Optane NVMe and one of several types of NVIDIA RTX 2080 graphics cards.

We run 4K @60Hz on multiple monitors; a Primary monitor is always present and connected via HDMI, but in some cabinet configurations, we have a second monitor connected via USB-C (DisplayPort) that displays an inverted view (think Battleship arrangement, back-to-back) where the player stations are on opposite borders of the display.

Up through Linux drivers 440.1 everything works perfectly. Past that, (currently 460.39) and needed for 30xx cards, the USB-C video output gets crazy. The image is duplicated on the monitor and squished to half-height, with a thick green bar across the middle. Note that in the pic below, we extended the desktop, as opposed to the arrangement we run in Production

To see the game “in action” with this problem, in our ENG lab, please see the YouTube video here:

Oddly enough, we only see this behavior when we ONLY have HDMI + USB-C. If we add a DisplayPort-connected tertiary monitor, the problem goes away!:

Due to posting limitations, I have to cut this post off, but I will try to add another right behind this one.

We have tried to pull as much information as possible to assist NVIDIA or anyone else interested in this mystery. Let’s start with the requisite nvidia-bug-report.log.gz file

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (284.2 KB)

We also have screenshots of the various nvidia-setting UI screens here:

NVIDIA-Settings.rar (3.2 MB)

Our xorg.conf file lives in 2 places; /etc/X11 and /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d but we keep the files in sync:

xorg.conf (1.7 KB)

We also saw a post that has an amazing concatenation of commands starting with lspci, so including that:

lspci-long (60.6 KB)

We are in full production of several thousand machines and need a single OS to support both 3060 ti cards and the 2080 cards that still have the USB-C, which is so-far the only way we’ve done dual-screen, via USB-C to HDMI Adapter cables.

I hope we have not overloaded this topic with too much data. If someone wants to peer directly into the system, it has TeamViewer installed, and a DM to chris.cummings@paceomatic.com would be awesome. We can get you hooked right in.

Thanks for taking a look!

This has been reported before but so far nvidia didn’t respond
https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/no-picture-on-1-dual-monitor/173179?u=generix
https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/ubuntu-20-04-2070s-nvidia-460-sets-one-monitor-into-2560x2922-30fps-and-does-split-screen-mirror/174193?u=generix
https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/dual-gpu-triple-monitors-horizontal-screen-split/165635?u=generix
The underlying problem seems to be the nvidia driver >440 having problems with a lot of active DP2HDMI converters.

Thanks for the very fast reply, generix! Sorry if I am duplicating a problem already being seen.

Hi Chris,
We have internally filed a bug 200723803 for tracking purpose.
I will keep you updated regarding its status.

Thank you very much. I will be here to help you with any replication or remote monitoring you want done.

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I am using below configuration setup in order to duplicate issue locally but no luck so far.

Alienware Desktop + AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core Processor + Ubuntu 19.04 + GeForce RTX 2080 + Driver 460.39 + 2 Displays

Primary Display ASUS XG35V with Resolution 3440 x 1440 connected via HDMI port
Secondary Display Dell UP3214Q with Resolution 3840 x 2160 connected via USB-C (GPU) to DP converter and it is configured as inverted view.
I played game Dragon Cliff but could not observed any anomaly. I tried looking for Dragon Ascent game in steam but could not found so far.
Could you please confirm if issue is only reproducible with games Dragon’s Ascent ? If yes, then I will explore more to look for this particular game.
Is this problem can be duplicated without any game ? if yes , please specify the steps so that I can the try same.
Also let me know if you feel any changes required on my setup.
Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the update!

I think the configuration for processor and even OS are probably OK, but I wonder if the USB-C to DP is different. We have found several that produce the green bar, and one that does not (Actually works!). So there is something in the adaptor circuitry that is confusing the later versions of the NVIDIA driver.

Is there any chance I could send one of the USB-C to DP adapters to you? Then you could see it for yourself, and see the legacy driver (older than 440.1) working but later ones showing the problem.

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Sure deal, will you be able to send adapter to Pune, India.
If not, I can check if someone from Santa Clara office can try to duplicate issue and then you may have to send adapter to SC.
Please let me know which ever location is more comfortable to you.

I can send it directly to you without a problem.

Just provide a fully qualified address and let me know if UPS is an option. If not, we can do DHL, but UPS is easier on our end.

If acceptable, it will not be in the blister pack, so we can say it is defective and reduce the material cost being claimed for customs.

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Hi Chris,
Please share your email id so that we can communicate on it further offline.

Chris.Cummings@paceomatic.com

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Thanks, I have initiated email offline.