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Im stuck on setting up nvidia driver. For a few weeks now ive been trying to get Dual monitors to work on distros fedora FC4 FC3 and currently trying SUSE10. But I cant get the nvidia driver to work properly even with one monitor on all distros.
What happens is that when I init 5 I get t half rendered screen (top looks ok but bottom is white) and keyborad dosnt respond to CTRL alt F1 but my my mouse works. I can recover from this by sshing from another machine and doing an init 3 changing the driver to "nv" and doing an init 5 again. Text screens will not even display with simple init 3 unless i change into the nv driver and cycle though init 5 and init 3. Ive not read about this anywhere yet. Windows 98 displays both monitors btw with this hardware.
I have an ASUS A7M266 motherboard with a AMD 761 northbridge and VIA 82C686B shouth bridge chipset and a NVIDIA FX 5700 LE graphics card.
On Twinview the same thing happens on screen 0 but screen 1 renders fully and mouse can travel between screens but no keyboard input is possible.
So
My nv driver works for the 2 monitors and shows a copy of screen0 in screen1 (without the cursor) is there a way to get dual monitors to work with nv ?
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2006-02-15T17:15:51-0600.
#
# Version: 7.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2002
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (7.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#
If you need dual mode (or twinview), you'd download nvidia drivers from nvidia.com and install it. Read the documention that comes with it which clearly explains how to achieve twinview mode including references, tweaks needed. Once installed you'll have to change the driver from "nv" to "nvidia" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, the nvidia installer itself can do this for you. Not only do you get the twinview enabled you will also get hardware acceleration with this driver. :-)
I have downloaded it on 3 distributions and cant get it to work. As discribed even in single screen mode as soon as X launches only half the screen paints.
your xorg.conf shows that you are using the nv driver, however if you have installed the nvidia driver i'm pretty sure that you need to use the nvidia driver.
and you need to add Option twinview i think. something like that.
Last edited by Crayoneater; 02-20-2006 at 10:35 AM.
I was using the nvdriver, granted its not in this version of the xorg.conf but the xorg.conf but it wouldnt work when i made it nvdriver is waht i was saying.
This is now sorted (in a way). The nvdriver dosnt seem to work with my card GForce FX 5700 LE. The driver works fine with FX 5200 and my new purchace which is a FX 5500 for $85.
So it was nothing i was doing wrong it was this card that had issues. It would be interesting if this is a common problem with this card as it seems to work fine in XP (albet with the shiped driver only) and in win 98.
Many thanks and hope this helps someone save a few weekends of trying fruitlessly :-).
Follow this link which will lead to the README file on NVidia.com. This page lists the chipsets supported by the latest nvidia driver. Your graphics chipset is listed there as "GeForce FX 5700LE 0x0343".
Quote:
I was using the nvdriver, granted its not in this version of the xorg.conf but the xorg.conf but it wouldnt work when i made it nvdriver is waht i was saying.
This is now sorted (in a way). The nvdriver dosnt seem to work with my card GForce FX 5700 LE. The driver works fine with FX 5200 and my new purchace which is a FX 5500 for $85.
You are still tlaking about "nv" driver and I'm talking about using "nvidia" driver. The Driver option in xorg.conf file should be changed to "nvidia" from "nv". Driver "nv" is not gonna help you. If you have downloaded http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L...-8178-pkg1.run file and executed this file as root and have changed the xorg.conf as said before and have read the appendix G of the README file http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L...ppendix-g.html on howto configure twinview and even after that if you can't get it working then, I'd give up even if you didn't !! :-)(
Just to clear up things. From the start i was using "nvidia" and my login screen did not complete rendering. Then I switched to the "nv" driver to login and post my message to this forum I copied my xorg.conf and forgot to remove the "nv" form the post. So I was using "nvidia" setting on my tests. However ....
I have since then got another card FX 5500 which works with 'nvidia' and the above xconfig (with the "nvivia" setting) and i even get dual screens working, but the card was a bit slow. So I got a faster card GeForce 6600 GT and this also half renders (with the "nvidia" driver). All cards are from same manufacturer eVGA. I believe now that this problem may be BIOS related problem on faster cards than the FX 5500. I have had some luck changing the PCI latency from 32 to 128. It dosnt half render anymore but its unstable. So im trying to do the following steps from NVIDIA and i will keep this forum posted.
Please :-) believe me when I say Its not a "nv" vs "nvidia" thing. Sorry for my mistake in my origional posting.
From NVIDIA troubleshooting page.
Answer ID
149
Last Updated
11/10/2004 09:33 AM
Print Answer
Email Answer Linux - Configuring AGP
Question
Linux - Configuring AGP
Answer
There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's
use of AGP: you can choose to either use NVIDIA's AGP module (NVAGP),
or the AGP module that comes with the linux kernel (AGPGART). This is
controlled through the "NvAGP" option in your X config file:
Option "NvAgp" "0" ... disables AGP support
Option "NvAgp" "1" ... use NVAGP, if possible
Option "NvAgp" "2" ... use AGPGART, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "3" ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NVAGP
The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251).
You should use the AGP module that works best with your AGP chip set.
If you are experiencing problems with stability, you may want to start
by disabling AGP and observing if that solves the problems. Then you
can experiment with either of the other AGP modules.
You can query the current AGP status at any time via the /proc filesystem
interface (see APPENDIX O: PROC INTERFACE).
To use the Linux AGPGART module, it will need to be compiled with
your kernel, either statically linked in, or built as a module.
NVIDIA AGP support cannot be used if AGPGART is loaded in the kernel.
It is recommended that you compile AGPGART as a module and make sure that
it is not loaded when trying to use NVIDIA AGP.
Please also note that changing AGP drivers generally requires a reboot
before the changes actually take effect.
The following AGP chipsets are supported by NVIDIA's AGP; for all other
chipsets it is recommended that you use the AGPGART module.
o Intel 440LX
o Intel 440BX
o Intel 440GX
o Intel 815 ("Solano")
o Intel 820 ("Camino")
o Intel 830
o Intel 840 ("Carmel")
o Intel 845 ("Brookdale")
o Intel 845G
o Intel 850 ("Tehama")
o Intel 855 ("Odem")
o Intel 860 ("Colusa")
o Intel 865G ("Springdale")
o Intel 875P ("Canterwood")
o Intel E7205 ("Granite Bay")
o Intel E7505 ("Placer")
o AMD 751 ("Irongate")
o AMD 761 ("IGD4")
o AMD 762 ("IGD4 MP")
o AMD 8151 ("Lokar")
o VIA 8371
o VIA 82C694X
o VIA KT133
o VIA KT266
o VIA KT400
o VIA P4M266
o VIA P4M266A
o VIA P4X400
o VIA K8T800
o RCC CNB20LE
o RCC 6585HE
o Micron SAMDDR ("Samurai")
o Micron SCIDDR ("Scimitar")
o NVIDIA nForce
o NVIDIA nForce2
o NVIDIA nForce3
o ALi 1621
o ALi 1631
o ALi 1647
o ALi 1651
o ALi 1671
o SiS 630
o SiS 633
o SiS 635
o SiS 645
o SiS 646
o SiS 648
o SiS 648FX
o SiS 650
o SiS 655FX
o SiS 730
o SiS 733
o SiS 735
o SiS 745
o SiS 755
o ATI RS200M
If you are experiencing AGP stability problems, you should be aware of
the following:
o Support for the processor's Page Size Extension on Athlon Processors
Some linux kernels have a conflicting cache attribute bug that is
exposed by advanced speculative caching in newer AMD Athlon family
processors (AMD Athlon XP, AMD Athlong 4, AMD Athlon MP, and Models 6
and above AMD Duron). This kernel bug usually shows up under heavy use
of accelerated 3D graphics with an AGP graphics card.
Linux distributions based on kernel 2.4.19 and later *should*
incorporate the bug fix. But, older kernels require help from the user
in ensuring that a small portion of advanced speculative caching is
disabled (normally done through a kernel patch) and a boot option is
specified in order to apply the whole fix.
NVIDIA's driver automatically disables the small portion of advanced
speculative caching for the affected AMD processors without the need
to patch the kernel; it can be used even on kernels which do already
incorporate the kernel bug fix. Additionally, for older kernels the
user performs the boot option portion of the fix by explicitly disabling
4MB pages. This can be done from the boot command line by specifying:
mem=nopentium
Or by adding the following line to etc/lilo.conf:
append = "mem=nopentium"
o AGP drive strength BIOS setting (Via based mainboards)
Many Via based mainboards allow adjusting the AGP drive strength in
the system BIOS. The setting of this option largely affects system
stability, the range between 0xEA and 0xEE seems to work best for
NVIDIA hardware. Setting either nibble to 0xF generally restults in
severe stability problems.
If you decide to experiment with this, you need to be aware of
the fact that you are doing so at your own risk and that you may
render your system unbootable with improper settings until you
reset the setting to a working value (w/ a PCI graphics card or
by resetting the BIOS to its default values).
o System BIOS version
Make sure to have the latest system BIOS provided by the board
manufacturer.
o AGP Rate
You may want to decrease the AGP rate setting if you are seeing
lockups with the value you are currently using. You can do so by
extracting the .run file:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run --extract-only
cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1/usr/src/nv/
Then edit os-registry.c, and make the following changes
- static int NVreg_ReqAGPRate = 7;
+ static int NVreg_ReqAGPRate = 4; /* force AGP Rate to 4x */
or
+ static int NVreg_ReqAGPRate = 2; /* force AGP Rate to 2x */
or
+ static int NVreg_ReqAGPRate = 1; /* force AGP Rate to 1x */
On Athlon motherboards with the VIA KX133 or 694X chip set, such as the
ASUS K7V motherboard, NVIDIA drivers default to AGP 2x mode to work around
insufficient drive strength on one of the signals. You can force AGP 4x
by setting NVreg_EnableVia4x to 1. Note that this may cause the system
to become unstable.
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work
around timing issues and signal integrity issues. You can force AGP
to be enabled on these chipsets by setting NVreg_EnableALiAGP to 1.
Note that this may cause the system to become unstable.
Early SBIOS revisions for the ASUS A7V8X-X KT400 motherboard misconfigure
the chipset when an AGP 2.x graphics card is installed; if X hangs on
your ASUS KT400 system with either Linux AGPGART or NvAGP enabled and the
installed graphics card is not an AGP 8x device, make sure that you have
the lastest SBIOS installed.
I have since then got another card FX 5500 which works with 'nvidia' and the above xconfig (with the "nvivia" setting) and i even get dual screens working, but the card was a bit slow. So I got a faster card GeForce 6600 GT and this also half renders (with the "nvidia" driver). All cards are from same manufacturer eVGA. I believe now that this problem may be BIOS related problem on faster cards than the FX 5500. I have had some luck changing the PCI latency from 32 to 128. It dosnt half render anymore but its unstable.
I think I saw a recommendation to use 132 as PCI latency with (some?) nvidia cards. To get the 6600 GT more stable you could try to slightly adjust AGP drive strength settings.
The Option "NvAGP" "1" in the driver section has stablized things and ive reverted to the origonnal BIOS settings without issue. PCI latency is at 32 again.
Dual screen is much faster now and im a happy camper. Here is the Device settings now.
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Stuck on nvidia driver.
