External display with closed laptop
 

I'm using a Lenovo dock with an xps 13 9343 running Ubuntu 16.04 to an external monitor connected with DVI, and with the lastest driver works fine. The problem arrive when I try to use the laptop with the screen closed, for working only with the external display. As soon as I close the lid begins to slow down the system, 5 seconds to open any window, but if I open the lid of the laptop and I enable it, the system starts to run well

The same exactly happens to me on Arch Linux, with XPS 15 9530 and an D3100 DisplayLink dock.
The rendering drops down close to 1FPS on the docked monitors, once I close the lid of my laptop.
I've posted here, but nobody really helped.. didn't find a solution on the internet either, and I do an extensive search from time to time.

Workaround
 

I had this issue too. The issues posted to EVDI's github get the usual "Not our problem" response. Link to issue: https://github.com/DisplayLink/evdi/issues/61.

The only workaround I found is to disable all actions taken when lid is closed. There are settings in system settings, and there is a config file. I don't remember the file location, but I'll look for it and post an update.