How to Revive Your Second Monitor in Manjaro When the System Doesn’t Detect It

Enabled multi-monitor mode in BIOS, booted into Manjaro, and your second monitor is still a no-show? Annoying, right? But when you boot from a Live USB, everything magically works. Unfair? Totally. Let’s fix this.

The Problem

After enabling multi-monitor mode in BIOS, Manjaro refuses to detect the integrated GPU. Running:

lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D"

shows only your discrete graphics card. The second monitor? Nowhere to be found. Yet, on Live USB, the system detects everything perfectly. Sounds like Xorg is quietly mocking you. Time to reinstall it and show who’s boss.

The Solution: Reinstall Xorg

Step 1. Reinstall Xorg

First, make sure your system is up to date (you don’t want any stale cache causing issues):

sudo pacman -Syu

Now reinstall the Xorg display server:

sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit

Next, clean out any old configurations that might be causing conflicts:

sudo rm -rf /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/*

Step 2. Reboot

Reboot your system:

sudo reboot

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Verifying the Fix

Once the system is back up, check if Manjaro now sees the integrated GPU:

lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D"

Then, check if the second monitor is detected:

codexrandr

If the second monitor shows up, configure its position (e.g., to the right of your primary screen):

xrandr --output HDMI1 --auto --right-of eDP1

Replace HDMI1 and eDP1 with the ports detected by xrandr.

Why Does This Work?

When you boot from Live USB, the system uses a “clean slate” setup with updated configurations and drivers. Your installed system, however, may have accumulated outdated configs that ignore the integrated GPU or fail to support it properly. Reinstalling Xorg is like performing a factory reset for your graphics system—without reinstalling the entire OS.

What If It Doesn’t Work?

1. Drivers: Ensure you have the necessary drivers installed. For Intel GPUs:bashCopy codesudo pacman -S mesa vulkan-intel For AMD GPUs:bashCopy codesudo pacman -S mesa vulkan-radeon
2. BIOS/UEFI: Double-check that multi-monitor mode is enabled and the integrated GPU is active.
3. Kernel: Your current kernel might be outdated or incompatible. Install a newer one:bashCopy codesudo mhwd-kernel -i linux61

If none of this works, boot into the Live USB, copy its driver settings and configurations, and manually transfer them to your installed system. But that’s a story for another day.

Conclusion

Now you know how to revive your integrated GPU and second monitor in Manjaro without reinstalling the OS. Sometimes, fixing old configs is more powerful than starting fresh with a new distro.

Stay root!