Tv as second monitor not showing up as option with radeon X850XT-PE in Ubuntu

linuxnewbwtf · 05-12-2012, 09:46 PM

I'm using a crt tv as a second monitor (yes I know, it's 2012) I have an s-video cable coming out of the video card, which then connects to an rf adapter, which connects to the tv through a coax cable. The tv is not showing up as an option as a second monitor when I click "detect monitors" under system settings -> Displays. During the boot sequence everything shows up on the tv as well as my main monitor until ubuntu loads, then it only outputs to my main monitor.
I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04
here is the output of lspci

Quote:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P AGP Bridge (rev 02)
00:06.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P Processor to I/O Memory Interface (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI R481 [Radeon X850XT-PE]
01:00.1 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI R481 [Radeon X850XT-PE] (Secondary)
03:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82562EZ 10/100 Ethernet Controller (rev 02)

djsoundfx · 05-12-2012, 10:56 PM

So the good news is that the problem is not with your video card (well sort of), its that no OS drivers are really good a detecting when stuff is connected to the s-video port... So here are some things to try:

Code:

1. Turn load detection back on:

xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1

If this gets you working (and able to recognize that there is now a monitor attached):
2. Turn load detection back on permanently so it persists between reboots, add this to your xorg.conf:

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
        ...
        Option "TVDACLoadDetect" "TRUE"
EndSection

3. If you're still struggling you can always Force S-Video on:

xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600

linuxnewbwtf · 05-12-2012, 11:06 PM

I found and tried that from a google search. when I input

Code:

xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1

it returns

Code:

X Error of failed request:  BadName (named color or font does not exist)
  Major opcode of failed request:  150 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  11 (RRQueryOutputProperty)
  Serial number of failed request:  29
  Current serial number in output stream:  29

xrandr returns

Quote:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1440 x 900, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-0 connected 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 409mm x 255mm
1440x900 59.9*+ 75.0
1280x1024 75.0 60.0
1280x960 75.0 60.0
1152x864 75.0
1280x720 60.0
1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
832x624 74.6
800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
720x400 70.1
S-video disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
800x600 72.2
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I have also read a few things involving editing of the xorg.conf file, but I guess that was eliminated, and I'm having trouble creating one.

djsoundfx · 05-12-2012, 11:41 PM

Okay have you tried the following?

Code:

xrandr --output S-video --set tv_standard ntsc (or pal for outside of the US)
xrandr --output S-video --right-of VGA-0 --mode 800x600
or 
xrandr --output S-video --set "tv standard" ntsc
xrandr --output S-video --set "load detection" 1
xrandr --output S-video --right-of VGA-0 --mode 800x600

linuxnewbwtf · 05-13-2012, 12:23 AM

Entering

Code:

xrandr --output S-video --set "tv standard" ntsc
xrandr --output S-video --set "load detection" 1
xrandr --output S-video --right-of VGA-0 --mode 800x600

Made the VGA monitor go black completely until I restarted

Code:

xrandr --output S-video --set tv_standard ntsc

returned

Code:

X Error of failed request:  BadName (named color or font does not exist)
  Major opcode of failed request:  150 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  11 (RRQueryOutputProperty)
  Serial number of failed request:  29
  Current serial number in output stream:  29

djsoundfx · 05-13-2012, 08:29 AM

Are you getting any error message in dmsg, /var/log/messages, or xorg.o.log? They may contain more details. So the more I look in to this the more it sounds like a strange driver issue, just out of curiosity do you have x11-fonts installed (I doubt this is the cause but its worth checking).

linuxnewbwtf · 05-13-2012, 03:37 PM

I tried installing drivers from the ATI website
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...2&lang=English
when I double click the file, and select run in terminal, it runs through some stuff in the terminal and gives some error, then closes the terminal.

cascade9 · 05-14-2012, 04:35 AM

The ATI/AMD closed source drivers will not work on your video card. Support was dropped years ago.

With the open soruce drivers, I'm not 100% if TV-out is supported or not. According to the xorg.wiki TV is supported on your video card (X850s are all r400 series chips)-

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature/

Other sites say its not avaible-

Quote:

• TV-out support (only on R/RV/RS1xx, R/RV/RS2xx, R/RV/RS3xx. Experimental support on R/RV5xx, R/RV6xx, and R/RV7xx through the ATOMTvOut option);

http://linux.die.net/man/4/radeon

I do know that a few years ago TV-out did not work on r400 chips. Possibly the die.net site is using outdated info, x.org.wiki is right, and tv-out does now work. EVen if its wrong there is some info on die.net about xorg.conf options that might be useful. Its also possible that the RF adapter is causing a problem, and if you used native s-video it would work.....

Xorg.conf files are no longer standard with ubuntu, but you can create your own. The easy way is with this command-

sudo Xorg -configure

BTW, I wouldnt be using any CRT TV (particularly ones 'bad'/old enough to not have an s-video input) as a monitor unless it was for viewing (non-HD) video content...even then I would use a monitor if I had the option.

Actually, I do/did- there is a 24''+ CRT TV (ev en with with s-video) hanging around here, and I'm using a 19'' LCD 1440x900 instead of the TV for media viewing.