Dell Latitude E6510
Installing Ubuntu or Kubuntu 10.04 has been troublesome…
First, I noticed that it had a A01 BIOS version. But I figured that since the E6510 is a new model, it should be right. Then that’s where all the trouble started… When I would boot with the installer, sometimes the screen would go blank. Sometimes just turning it on will have a blank screen.
Going to my PC troubleshooting roots, I noticed whenever I plugged in an external monitor to the boot up, the screen would not come up at all. I first thought it was a bad laptop, but something told me to look on the site to see if there was an updated firmware. I went to the Dell support site and there it was, it was A03 update with a P02 patch. I read the description, but nothing seem to have what I was experiencing. I told myself to just try it anyways. I’m glad I did cause now the internal and external monitor works on every boot.
Now, I have another issue upon booting… After the installer goes to a certain point, the internal monitor would blank out again. Googling helped me find out that there are issues the latest kernel and some Nvidia, ATI, and Intel graphics drivers. I tried many things people suggested, but none really worked. I need to have the internal and external monitor to work (it’s for work, so I have to be able to use it at home on a docking station and at work with just the internal monitor).
All the things people suggested either had the internal monitor working but not the external, or the other way around. I basically got real fed up with 10.04 and tried 9.10 and 9.04. I installed it and everything went fine. Works with and without docking.
I was going to give up there and just just 9.10 till 10.04 works. Then I started to do the usual installing apps and updating the system. Then after an updated kernel, it restarted and while docked, it worked. Then I undocked it (meaning I just used the internal monitor) and it gave me the blank screen. So, that lead me to believe that somethings going on with the kernel.
I went on a mission to figure out what kernel is going on. I read on some post that installing an older kernel could fix my issue, so I found the Ubuntu kernel team page and went and installed random kernels in the 2.32.6.xx family. This is when I was on 9.10, and installing random ones, I noticed that at a certain point, it would blank out.
I decided to install 10.04 again and install kernels from 2.6.32.9 to 2.6.32.15 and see if that helped my situation. (Note, the default 10.04 installs a 2.6.32.21). I first ran 2.6.32.9 without the monitor. Success… it worked. Then I docked it, and again… success!! Okay.. lets try .15, and see if that works… *crosses finger* Nope… didn’t work. Then I tired .11, it worked, tried .14, it failed. Okay… getting close.. I tried .13-4, fail, .13-3, fail. Then finally 2.6.32.13… success!!!
Everything works. Well, as far as wifi (it didn’t work with the stock 9.10 kernel) and video (with and without docking). The only thing I can’t do is when docked, I can’t undock it. I still need to poweroff the laptop before switching displays. I’m pretty sure there’s a fix for that, but for now, I can live with it.
TL;DR - Got new laptop, internal/external monitor didn’t work. Updated firmware, got monitor to a stable state. Installed Kubuntu 10.04, 9.10, and 9.04 and figured out the blank issue is a kernel issue. On 10.04, kernel 2.6.32.13 works.
Edit: My setup is that I don’t have to do extra kernel args in GRUB and in xorg.conf, I need to use driver “intel”.