Ubuntu 22 VGA Monitor won't Display Login Screen, but Works Afterwards

System:

Motherboard: ASRock B450M Pro4
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
Graphics: GeForce GTX 970

Monitors:

  1 on GeForce GTX 970 via DisplayPort (2560 x 1440, 144 Hz)
  1 on Onboard via DVI (1920 x 1080, 60 Hz)
  1 on Onboard via VGA (1600 x 1200, 60 Hz) <- this one is the problem

Other info:

I'm dual-booting with Windows 10, where there are no issues with the third monitor. I've changed the BIOS to set the external graphics card as primary, but the BIOS and boot screen still display on the onboard VGA monitor when it is connected. If the onboard VGA is disconnected, they display on the onboard DVI.

Problem:

When the onboard VGA monitor is connected at boot time, I see Ubuntu start (there are a few errors which also occur if the VGA monitor is NOT connected), but no login screen appears - the monitor gets no output shortly after boot.

If the VGA monitor is NOT connected, I get the login screen on the onboard DVI monitor. I can connect the VGA monitor anytime after the login screen appears, and it works fine.

What I've Tried:

• Two different VGA cables and a VGA to DVI cable - no change.
• Copying monitors.xml to the gdm user (as per Is there to make the login screen appear on the external display in 18.04?) - this will cause the correct monitor to display the login screen when the onboard VGA is disconnected, but if the onboard VGA is plugged in, there's no output.
• Enabling and disabling Wayland - no effect.
• Pressing ALT + F2 after boot - no output.

TL;DR: I suggest that you give up on VGA, and just proceed with DVI and HDMI.

Long story

I have been having the same problem with VGA output after doing a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04.1. There is no output to the monitor after starting up, the blue LED light turns to orange standby mode light. My motherboard is a Gigabyte with 3 outputs, HDMI, DVI, VGA.

I had tried with Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu 22.04 installations on the exact same hardware, and all of them won't even get to the login screen. Sometimes the GRUB menu shows up, sometimes even shows up with some items on the GRUB menu missing, and mostly after selecting the GRUB menu item, only a black screen with the standby led light lighting up results. Although it seems to go on standby, the CPU fan is still running. My conclusion was that something is awry with Ubuntu 22.04, and so its derivatives Xubuntu/Kubuntu therefore show the same problem since they have the same core.

Finally, desperate for a solution, I decided to switch to Debian 11.5 amd64. I chose the graphical installer, and my screen showed a corrupted display, while being connected via VGA to my monitor.

This is when I figured my VGA cable may be problematic, and so I switched to a good VGA cable. However, I still had the same problem. So I ruled out the VGA cable. Then I switched to HDMI, the startup screen was fine, and then I tried DVI, and all fine also, and all on the same ViewSonic monitor that has all 3 input types.

My final conclusion is that there's something wrong with the VGA output in 22.04. The weird part is that I also found that when I go into recovery mode while using VGA output, entering into CLI and then executing startx, the GUI appears, no problems at all. This leads me to believe that there's something not right with Ubuntu itself and not my PC's VGA hardware. I spent 3 days on this trying all kinds of methods.

I suggest that you give up on VGA, and just proceed with DVI and HDMI. Hope this helps.