[NBLUG/talk] Dual Monitor configuration problem

[Justin Thiessen]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 07:13:49PM -0700, Rob Orsini wrote:
> I am having problems getting both monitors working with a new RH9 box 
> of mine.  I have two video cards: Nvidia (AGP) and a ATI (PCI).  I have 
> confirmed that each card/monitor works on it's own with my system by 
> switching the bios video setting between PCI and AGP.  I think my 
> XF86config file is in pretty good shape in terms of the required 
> sections. My current theory is that my system is looking in the wrong 
> place for the second video card, but I really don't know what's going 
> on.
> 
> Here are two lines that stood out to me from the XFree86.log file:
> (II) ATI:  Candidate "Device" section "Videocard1".
> (WW) ATI:  PCI/AGP Mach64 in slot 2:0:0 could not be detected!

There are a couple of possible issues:

(1) Some PCI graphics cards won't function unless they are set to
primary in the BIOS.  You may have to let the ATI card be the primary
for the boot-up display.  Otherwise it may not be properly initialized
by the bios

I have my system set up that way with a Matrox G200MMS and a G400 MAX.

It's possible to tell linux which display to use for it's primary output,
so, for example, even though the 1st head of the G200MMS card is the initial
boot-up display, my system switches over and uses the 1st head of the G400
partway through the boot sequence.

> Do I need to tell X exactly where to look for each video card?

(2) You probably do need to tell X exactly where to look for each video card.
    This is pretty easy to do given the output from lspci.

For example, the output from lspci looks like this on my system:

-----------------------
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21152 (rev 03)
00:13.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT366/368/370/370A/372 (rev 01)
00:13.1 Unknown mass storage controller: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT366/368/370/370A/372 (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G400 AGP (rev 04)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP (rev 03)
02:04.0 Display controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP (rev 03)
02:08.0 Display controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP (rev 03)
02:0c.0 Display controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200 AGP (rev 03)
-----------------------

And the relevant section of my XF86Config file looks like:

-----------------------
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "G400_MAX_0"
    Driver      "mga"
    VideoRAM    32768
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "G400_MAX_1"
    Driver      "mga"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "MM_G200MMS_0"
    Driver      "mga"
    BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
    Option      "MGASDRAM" "on"
    VideoRAM    8192
    Option      "HWCursor" "off"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "MM_G200MMS_1"
    Driver      "mga"
    BusID       "PCI:2:4:0"
    Option      "MGASDRAM" "on"
    VideoRAM    8192
    Option      "HWCursor" "off"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "MM_G200MMS_2"
    Driver      "mga"
    BusID       "PCI:2:8:0"
    Option      "MGASDRAM" "on"
    VideoRAM    8192
    Option      "HWCursor" "off"
EndSection
  
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "MM_G200MMS_3"
    Driver      "mga"
    BusID       "PCI:2:12:0"
    Option      "MGASDRAM" "on"
    VideoRAM    8192
    Option      "HWCursor" "off"
    Option      "SyncOnGreen" "on"
EndSection
-----------------------------

Let us know how it goes.

Justin Thiessen
thiessen at sonic.net