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monitor

I have 2 Philips monitors 272S and 272B and there are two problems.

  • 272S is slightly harder on the eye
  • 272S buttons don't work anymore.

The on/off touch buttons seems to work, but pressing the other buttons just does nothing.

So I investigated a way to set monitor settings with software.

ddc

Installation of ddcutil involves installing ddc software and loading the kernel module.

install ddc
apt-get install ddcutil ddcui libi2c-dev
modprobe i2c-dev
listing modules
lsmod | grep i2c
i2c_dev                24576  0
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 nouveau
i2c_piix4              28672  0

The modprobe command activates the /dev/i2c-* devices and now you can run

command line
ddcutil detect
Display 1
   I2C bus:  /dev/i2c-4
   DRM connector:           card0-DVI-D-1
   EDID synopsis:
      Mfg id:               PHL - Philips Consumer Electronics Company
      Model:                PHL 272S4L
      Product code:         2276  (0x08e4)
      Serial number:        AU11542000839
      Binary serial number: 839 (0x00000347)
      Manufacture year:     2015,  Week: 42
   VCP version:         2.2

Display 2
   I2C bus:  /dev/i2c-8
   DRM connector:           card0-HDMI-A-1
   EDID synopsis:
      Mfg id:               PHL - Philips Consumer Electronics Company
      Model:                PHL 272B8Q
      Product code:         2328  (0x0918)
      Serial number:        AU01816003457
      Binary serial number: 3457 (0x00000d81)
      Manufacture year:     2018,  Week: 16
   VCP version:         2.2

So you can also see which monitor is connected to which display port. However, it will be much easier to just used the user interface :

ddcui

This program gives you all settings needed and they will change directly.

settings

However, we now solved problem 2, but problem 1 still remains. TODO: I did not manage to match the monitors also when I copied all settings. Maybe the 272B8Q just is a 'softer' monitor ?

hardware switch

I have two very cheap hdmi switches from action, and with it you can setup varying monitor setups between macbook and PC Note that the hdmo switches have 3 ports so laptop could in theory also be attached.

  • Connect both monitors with hdmi and connect each to one of the HDMI switches.
  • Connect the PC HDMI port via HDMI cable to the right switch
  • Connect PC DVI to the left switch with a DVI-HDMI cable (We have two)
  • Connect Macbook to the left switch with the usbc-HDMI cable
  • Connect Macbook to the right switch via the dongle (usbc-HDMI) (or buy a second usbc-HDMI cable ?)

This just works, you can try all (4) combinations even 1 screen PC on the left and 1 MACbook on the right. Both macbook and PC seem to remember where to switch to when losing of gaining a screen.. Neat !!