Quick Confirmation about Multiple Graphics Cards
 

This is not so much of a question as a confirmation.

I've got a Dell Dimension 8200 that was donated to me for a clustering project. It's got a nVidia GeForce 2 graphics card in the AGP slot right now. However, would it be possible to put another graphics card in the PCI slot and have Linux be able to identify both of them to use for dual monitors?

My suspicion is no because this would probably be blocked by the motherboard.

If your BIOS support this (which is very unlikely) then yes...
but unless you are using very exotic motherboard, no, sorry :)

That's what I thought...
T.T

Now I've got to figure out if there's a way to do this with two computers...
Or I could just buy a new graphics card.

Most motherboards have no problem with 2 graphics cards...that is my experience anyways. I have run 2 cards in windows and linux with no issues. My current mobo is an asus p4p-800 and have not had any issues on it with a card in the agp and in the pci. I know quite a few mobo's i have worked on even had an option in the bios as to which card to use as the primary display (PCI orAGP). Try it out, nothing will get toasted, the worst case scenario is your mobo wont like having 2 cards and you remove 1. When you boot up you might have to swap monitor cables around depending on which card it uses as the primary. Good luck and dont be afraid to try it out.


Mike

mike105105 : As he said in his first message, he wants Linux to recognize BOTH card and to use them to do DUAL monitor display (so to use both cards at the same time). The answer to his question was "no" as I replied. He never asked about danger to toast the mobo (??), if the BIOS would be able to use one card out of two, or anything similar.

And as I said I have done this many times on different mobos.....but until you set up xorg to use the second card you will only get video out of the primary graphics adapter...the POST, the bootloader, the login, and everything else will only be visable on the primary card, hence the need to swap monitor plugs to find the primary, you wont see anything until you hook up to the primary card, and wont be able to set up xorg to use both cards. Understand my post better now?


Mike

I thought I posted here before...
Hmmm...

Anyways, I honestly don't care which one will be the primary card so long as both of them work.
Is there any reason for Dell to use a motherboard that is stingy enough to only allow one graphics card to work? If not, then I'd be home free because it would be easy to install a second graphics card.

I am pretty sure it will work with no problems. I had a compaq 300mhz P2 with an integrated agp graphics chip...it had no problems using the onboard video plus an additional pci card. Like I said...just slap a card in there and find out...5 min worth of work and you will have a deffinate answer. Here is a forum...mainly windows though, that is all about multiple cards/monitors http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon...?forum=1&tmpl=


mike

Does this sound reasonable?
nVIDIA GeForce 2 AGP Card (already installed)
nVIDIA RIVA TNT2 16MB PCI Card (will buy from eBay)

Using the forum that you provided with me, Mike, I did find a configuration with a configuration similar to this on Linux at http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon...e=SearchConfig (only the RIVA TNT2 was on AGP and the GeForce 2 was a PCI card).

Sure, sounds good enough, but with the great prices on eBay you might want to find a more modern card....nothing crazy, just something you can use as the primary card in a different computer if you ever have the need.


Mike

This is a trivial problem.

Just create new monitor/device/screen sections in your X config and add a new screen line to the serverlayout.

What's the big deal? Dual-head is old news.

And WTF has it got to do with the BIOS?

Unfortunately, in one of my other boxes, only one graphics card is allowed to be used at one time and that was controlled at the BIOS level by the motherboard.
I don't consider hardware a particularly strong point of mine, so I just wanted to make sure.