Video output not engaging when monitor is off

[cracauer@]

Situation:
- FreeBSD, no video drivers, just text console
- NVidia 2080ti card with 3 Displayport ports and one HDMI
- monitor connected to a Displayport port
- monitor is off (with a hardware switch)

The problem is that the video out does not engage on boot and there is no output even after you turn the monitor on. Linux text console doesn't have the same problem when booting into it, there is text console output when turning the monitor on.

Is there anything I can do?

 

[Kai Burghardt]

What /devices are present? Random guess: The probing mechanism thinks you want a serial console. Override with /boot/loader.conf(5):​

console='efi'
boot_serial='no'

But everything works fine if the display is turned on first, right? Technically, EDID can be read out any time so it shouldn’t make a difference.​

 

[cracauer@]

What /devices are present? Random guess: The probing mechanism thinks you want a serial console. Override with /boot/loader.conf(5):​

console='efi'
boot_serial='no'

But everything works fine if the display is turned on first, right? Technically, EDID can be read out any time so it shouldn’t make a difference.​

Thank you.

Would a console-to-serial redirection also redirect /etc/rc.d output and disable the getty on the VGA card powered console?

 

[Kai Burghardt]

[…] Would a console-to-serial redirection also redirect /etc/rc.d output and disable the getty on the VGA card powered console?

I don’t think it is disabled but might not be enabled: Usually /etc/ttys(5) contains onifconsole and onifexists flags. I’m not really familiar with the details here since I’ve never used a serial console.​

pstat -t

pstat(8) is probably more helpful, in particular whether a terminal is Opened. The device nodes /dev/ttyu* may be present even if not in use.​