[NBLUG/talk] Dual Monitor configuration problem

[Rob Orsini]

On Sunday, September 28, 2003, at 12:57 PM, Justin Thiessen wrote:

> 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.


Justin,

Thanks for the reply.  As for making the ATI/PCI primary in the bios, I 
have tried both options already.  I guess I'm confused about the error 
message that says it can't find the ATI card at 2:0:0 when output of 
'lspci' says that it is, in fact, there.   I'm also wondering where X 
is geting the "ATI/PCI Mach 64" string in it's error message when 
'lspci' lists a different description for that card.  I realize that I 
named it "ATI Mach 64" in my conf file but that's still not the same 
string as in the error.

Also, I just read about the 'XFree86 -scanpci' command in "Running 
LInux" which I hope will display exactly what X sees in the PCI bus 
which I guess might differ from the output of 'lspci'.  There's also 
'XFree86 -probeonly which might help give me more info.

Unfortunately, the box is at work and I'll have to wait tomorrow a.m. 
to try all this.

Thanks,
Rob