On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 07:20:35 -0400, songbird wrote: > none of the CTRL-ALT or other key combinations make > a difference. (i'm not sure why CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't > reboot as it should... it used to work, plus the > X11 restart key combination also used to work...) > > last night i removed mate-screensaver to make sure that > wasn't the issue. it isn't as i had the same thing happen > this morning. > > moving the mouse would seem to be the way to get the > screen to come back on, but that doesn't do anything. > > i did find out a bit ago though that if i turn the volume > knob on the USB speaker it will bring the display back up > to where i can see again, but i'm not sure what else may be > going on here.
This sounds like a hardware issue to me. After checking the cables as previously suggested, my next idea would be to try a different cable, or a different monitor. (In any case, it would probably be helpful to know how the monitor is attached to the computer -- VGA, HDMI, Display Port?) That last bit about the speaker volume affecting the display is really strange. I don't understand how those two devices are interacting.
