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Old 10-30-2012, 04:34 PM   #1
thedevilsjester
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Three Monitors, Two Graphics Cards


I am running Ubuntu 12.10 and am trying to set up a multi monitor display.

By default the two monitors that are hooked up to the on board graphics card work great, but the one hooked up to the add on card is blank.

All of the results I can find either do not apply to my situation, or are much older (pre Unity, using xorg files that I either do not have, or cannot find anymore)

LSPCI Reports

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV516 [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series]

03:00.1 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV516 [Radeon X1300 Pro] (Secondary)


Is there anything I can do to get this third monitor to work? I am not tied to Ubuntu, is there another distro that is known to work with a setup like this out of the box?
 
Old 10-30-2012, 04:43 PM   #2
Rodebian
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If I understand you correctly you are trying to use two graphic cards? On onboard one and one in a pci-e or agp slot? If so I doubt very much you can do that. Your computer (Hardware side of it,) will only let you use one or the other. However if you have two, for example, pci-e slots for graphics cards then you can tie them in together with a set up, for example, two nvidia cards with sli. But the pci-e slots need to be pci-e 16X. On onboard intergrated card and one in your graphics card slot will not work at the same time.

Last edited by Rodebian; 10-30-2012 at 04:45 PM.
 
Old 10-30-2012, 04:52 PM   #3
thedevilsjester
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodebian View Post
If I understand you correctly you are trying to use two graphic cards? On onboard one and one in a pci-e or agp slot? If so I doubt very much you can do that. Your computer (Hardware side of it,) will only let you use one or the other. However if you have two, for example, pci-e slots for graphics cards then you can tie them in together with a set up, for example, two nvidia cards with sli. But the pci-e slots need to be pci-e 16X. On onboard intergrated card and one in your graphics card slot will not work at the same time.
It works quite nicely on Windows 7 (which was the OS previously being used on this machine before I took it over), which means it is likely not a hardware limitation. I would much rather use Linux on this machine though, so I am looking for a solution to keep the same monitor setup. It is not my hardware so I am not able to make any modifcations/additions to that aspect.
 
Old 10-30-2012, 04:55 PM   #4
Rodebian
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If it has worked before then great. I always thought the onboard one and the slot ones never worked together. Mine doesn't sadly and they are both Nvidia.
 
Old 10-30-2012, 09:37 PM   #5
thedevilsjester
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodebian View Post
If it has worked before then great. I always thought the onboard one and the slot ones never worked together. Mine doesn't sadly and they are both Nvidia.
I do not pretend to know anything about this subject other than it works great when I boot into Windows 7 but only uses the two monitors from the add on when I boot Linux.
 
Old 10-31-2012, 05:13 AM   #6
adamk75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thedevilsjester View Post
All of the results I can find either do not apply to my situation, or are much older (pre Unity, using xorg files that I either do not have, or cannot find anymore)
You do realize you can create an xorg.conf file, right? Try starting with the ones you found on-line, and modifying them for your needs. If you still have problems, show us the xorg.conf file you ended up with and the Xorg log file.

Adam
 
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Old 11-01-2012, 02:45 PM   #7
thedevilsjester
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Originally Posted by adamk75 View Post
You do realize you can create an xorg.conf file, right? Try starting with the ones you found on-line, and modifying them for your needs. If you still have problems, show us the xorg.conf file you ended up with and the Xorg log file.

Adam
While I appreciate recommendations, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. If this were a laptop with set hardware, I might find a xorg file on the net with similar hardware / setup and use it as a basis, but if I knew enough about xorg.conf files to make the major changes that would be nessisary with any xorg file I found on the net, I would probably not need to grab one from the net.

Is there a command in Ubuntu that will make xorg generate an xorg.conf file based on the current settings so I have a sane base to start from?
 
Old 11-01-2012, 03:24 PM   #8
TobiSGD
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I would recommend to begin with showing us the output of the command
Code:
xrandr
It should show you all the connected displays, if they are activated and which resolution they are running.
 
Old 11-01-2012, 03:26 PM   #9
TobiSGD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodebian View Post
However if you have two, for example, pci-e slots for graphics cards then you can tie them in together with a set up, for example, two nvidia cards with sli. But the pci-e slots need to be pci-e 16X.
Just for the correction. If you want to run multiple monitors you can do that with a dual graphics solution, but if you activate SLI (Nvidia) or CrossfireX (AMD) you will limit yourself to one monitor. Also, you don't need PCIe x16 for this, in fact, most consumer mainboards only have two x8 slots if you activate SLI/CrossfireX.
 
Old 11-01-2012, 03:39 PM   #10
Rodebian
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TobiSGD View Post
Just for the correction. If you want to run multiple monitors you can do that with a dual graphics solution, but if you activate SLI (Nvidia) or CrossfireX (AMD) you will limit yourself to one monitor. Also, you don't need PCIe x16 for this, in fact, most consumer mainboards only have two x8 slots if you activate SLI/CrossfireX.
I stand corrected. Thank you for clarifying that. Just when I thought I knew everything to ;-)
 
Old 11-02-2012, 11:11 AM   #11
thedevilsjester
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Originally Posted by TobiSGD View Post
I would recommend to begin with showing us the output of the command
Code:
xrandr
It should show you all the connected displays, if they are activated and which resolution they are running.
xrandr outputs the following:

Code:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 connected 1280x1024+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 376mm x 301mm
   1280x1024      60.0*+   75.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       74.9     59.8  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x768       74.9     59.9  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   1024x576       60.0  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   848x480        60.0  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
HDMI1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 376mm x 301mm
   1280x1024      60.0*+   75.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       74.9     59.9  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x768       74.9     60.0  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   1024x576       60.0  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   848x480        60.0  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
I have three identical monitors.

Ubuntu's "Displays" UI only shows the two that are connected to the onboard chip. The other one just says (on its screen) that it has no input.

The restricted drivers application (that, oddly, did not come preinstalled with 12.10 ...) does not list anything, if this makes any difference.
 
Old 11-08-2014, 07:16 AM   #12
zeebra
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too bad you did not get a response to this

X is one display...
X can only start once for normal graphic cards...
Linux should start all your hardware as long as its supported and included...

If you have two cards each with video out, you should be able to start xord.0 and xorg.1 as two seperate displays under the same operating system.

I think all you need is to configure Xorg.conf correctly and have it open two seperate displays and two seperate screens xorg0 and xorg1.

I am no expert on this and I have not tried it. Anyone correct me if I am wrong.

Actually I found and reopened this thread because I am interested in something similar. I want two motherboards to start with the Linux kernel and for GNU to be able to use the resources of both in an efficient way.

Anyone know if that is possible?

Last edited by zeebra; 11-08-2014 at 07:19 AM.
 
Old 11-09-2014, 01:33 AM   #13
EDDY1
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Have you checked in Settings>>Display
 
  


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