Dual monitors on seperate video cards.
 

I've got two monitors running independently on two different video cards. I notice things choppy and all around sluggish. Also I can't seem to get wallpaper to display properly on them. I know my monitors are capable of higher resolution than they are at. But I don't think my drivers are up to date.

Here is my lspci

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2)
00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:08.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430] (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1370 [AudioPCI]
01:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
01:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44 [GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM)] (rev a1)


When I view my drivers only one is activated and in use. Shouldn't there be two?

Hi this is no possible ...
u can add some dual display card.. for vga card...

Well the first gpu listed is the built-in motherboard gpu,and the second one listed is an older card that I am pretty sure had some issues similar to the 5200 series of cards.

It is also an unfortunate truth that the addon card you are using is some what out-of-date.

Now the nVidia 6150 chipset should be a pretty reliable chipset and should do fine for non-gaming use. Now the 6200 pci card that you have installed might be what is causing the most issue. I know on some of my older Gigabyte Mobos I could not run dual display properly with the 6150 chipset. I also noticed that your Mobo is the MCP61 series from MSI(If I remember right).

Dont get me wrong its a good Mobo and can be considered reliable... I still have one running on my network, but your best bet is to go with either a video card that supports Dual Monitors or to go with dual video cards that support dual monitors giving you the ability to expand to a Quad Display rig....

And have you installed the latest drivers from nVidia??

I got them from jockey-gtk but when I run that only one driver is listed as Activated and Currently in use.
Since i'm using two different cards, shouldn't there be two showing as active and in use? Would you recommend I download them from the nvidia website?

Well the first issue that you are going to have is that the 6150 chipset does not work well with PCIe video cards. You will need to upgrade the addon card to be able to do what you want. The Geforce 6 Series did not work well with Dual Monitors.

The 6 series video cards are also "Out-of-date" as they will only support up to directX 9. You will need to get at least a Geforce 9 series or better to accomplish what you are wanting to do. Sorry to deliver bad news, but again you will either need a video card that supports dual monitors or go with 2 cards that both support dual monitors.