NVIDIA 4-Monitor Issue!
 

Hey Guys,

So I just set up Linux Mint on one of my computers and liked it so much, I dove in and decided to set it up on my main computer, which runs 4 monitors via an NVIDIA NVS 440. Well as you can expect, I'm hitting some issues. I know that this has problem been beated to death, so I'm sorry but I just can't figure it out. I spent hours last night googling and nothing worked.

When I go to display, it shows all 4 of my monitors, however when I turn them all on, it brings me to a login screen with clouds in the background and nothing happens. Right now it is mirroring the display on 2 monitors only. I have yet to get the other two to display anything.

Under Driver Manager, I have 4 NVIDIA drivers showing up, it says that the 403.xx is recomended, however it's set to use the x-server. When I try to change to the 403 and hit apply it doesnt take and just changes back to xserver.

I'm pretty clueless, any thoughts? I would reall appreciate it.

Welcome to Linux Questions! :)

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The XServer is the module which handles the video, keyboard and mouse in a Unix/Linux system. Do you mean that it reverts back to its default driver perhaps?
(You can even run the XServer on a system remote from the main one!)

Can you tell us which version of Linux Mint you're using? Mint 17 has the Nouveau drivers as default but you can pull in the NVidia proprietary ones (Which it looks like you've done!) The XServer will need to be restarted to load the driver. (That's a log out and back in again, not a restart though that whould work too.)
Then, if you're lucky, you should be able to configure your monitors using the NVidia utility under Administration or Preferences.

Like I say, "If you're lucky" It worked for me with my dual head NVidia rig, It's configured so I have one contiguous workspace over the two screens. I've no idea if it can handle four screens but if it's NVidia's driver...

Play Bonny!

:hattip:

thanks for getting back to me, I really appreciate it. ok first off, my computer is empty right now, so I'm happpy to reinstall or do whatever if need be. I'm currently running Linux Mint 15 Olivia x86-64.

What I meant by the default driver thing with xserver, was indeed that nouveau deal. Please see the attachment, I want to run that 304 as it says it is recommended, however the xserver-xorg-video-nouveau is selected. And if I click the 304 and hit apply, a progress bar pops up on the bottom for a second, and then it just reverts right back to the xserver one.

edit: I thought I was running a newer version than that..I'm going to do an update and see if that helps.

I was originally running Ubuntu 10.04lts with the dual head set up, all AOK but when 10.04 went EOL, I upgraded to 14.04 (I think) Didn't really like the Unity desktop and I had similar problems to you with the dual head, I couldn't get it to work properly.
I then tried Mint 17 with Nouveau which worked but I got occasional flickers and stuff. The Mint web page said if this happened, try the propitiatory drivers which I did and that fixed it. I don't know if Mint 15 is likely to have problems but I'd try loading the latest Mint, 17 at least, and see what you get. You should be able to run it from a Live CD/DVD initially and at least gauge if Nouveau can handle your card. If OK, a fresh install should also give you access to the NVidia driver, you've no data to lose with a bare bones system so give it a go! :)

Play Bonny!

:hattip:

I'm trying to update to 17 now. So I make usb boot flash drive, and try to install, and I get this colorful, scrambled mess or random letters and symbols. Any clue what this means?

I had that problem when I used unebootin for debian-live. I resulted to using dd to put on
usb & it worked out.