darter with acer dual monitor

[tessk]

Hi ... hoping someone can help me with getting my Acer AL2216W monitor working with the Darter please.

This is what I've tried so far:


I plugged it in and nothing happened
So I went to Preferences > Display and tried different settings to no avail
Then I tried adding the following to my /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Acer AL2216W"
VendorName "Acer"
ModelName "AL2216W"
HorizSync 31-101
VertRefresh 60-160
ModeLine "1680x1050_60.00" 147.14 1680 1784 1968 2256 1050 1051 $
EndSection


After saving that file, I restarted the system, and much to my delight the second monitor mirrored the Darter's ... right up until the desktop appeared, at which point the second monitor just turned and stayed black
To see if it was my changes to xorg.conf that caused the mirroring, I reverted the file, restarted, and it still mirrored, so probably that behaviour was already there

Not sure where to go with this now! Advice much appreciated!

tess

[thomasaaron]

Does Display Preferences detect your external monitor? You should see two rectangles, one for your LCD and one for the external monitor.

If it does see it, does it detect the refresh rate and give you resolution options?

Also, do you get the same results with desktop effects disabled? (System > Prefs > Appearance > Visual Effects > None)

[tessk]

Does Display Preferences detect your external monitor? You should see two rectangles, one for your LCD and one for the external monitor.Yes it does. See attached screenshot.

If it does see it, does it detect the refresh rate and give you resolution options?As you can see in the screenshot it defaults to 1280x800 res and 60Hz refresh rate. There are other resolution options. Under the default resolution it only allows the 60Hz rate, but under other resolutions it gives the option of higher refresh rates.

Also, do you get the same results with desktop effects disabled? (System > Prefs > Appearance > Visual Effects > None)My effects were already set to None. I just tried switching to Normal to see what would happen, and it did the same behaviour on a restart (mirror until desktop appeared).

Thanks for your help. I've gotta go to work now so I won't be able to try anything more until this evening.

[PatrickVogeli]

you could try to put the Acer display Abow or Below the laptop's one, which could make the trick. I know intel used to have problems and limited the desktop to 2048x2048

[tessk]

hmm pretty sure i tried putting it above at one point, but i'll try again later when i'm home, and let you know. thanks :)

[thomasaaron]

CLICK on the rectangle representing your external monitor. Then set it's resolution. Then click Apply.

[tessk]

that sounds deliciously easy ... will let you know how it goes in a few hours

thanks!!

[tessk]

well tried both patrick's and tom's suggestions and no luck unfortunately :( still mirrors when booting up then goes blank once the desktop appears

any other ideas?

if it helps, my xorg.conf currently looks like this (removed comments):

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2960 1050
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "dvorak"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

[tessk]

every time i try to configure the second monitor, i have to click the 'on' button. i apply the changes and restart, but when i go back into the display preferences, the monitor is set back to 'off' again.

[thomasaaron]

What if you just log out and back in, as opposed to restarting?

[tessk]

aha got it working! while i had played around with the resolution when i first started troubleshooting this, i didn't realize i had only been adjusting the darter's resolution. it turns out i had to adjust the acer's resolution - it doesn't work when it's on the default (highest) setting. so once i changed that, it worked.

thanks for everyone's input :)