Help with 8.04, GeForce FX 5500 and twin Viewsonics!

[i,bigfoot]

Hi All,

I was hoping someone could help me with setting up a GeForce FX 5500 and some Viewsonic VA1903wmb 19" lcd screens?

I have followed a number of forum posts on this, without success. The closest I have got is having both monitors running in low graphics mode (800x640) showing the same desktop. I would like to get a number of visible desktops at 1440x900 if possible.

Forum threads followed so far...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221313&highlight=dual+monitors+hardy+8.04+nvidia+geforce+ fx+5500&page=3

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-783767.html

plus a little bit of community doc..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

Setup.

Motherboard - ASUS P4P800-E
Video Card - Nvidia GeForce FX 5500

lspci output..

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 PCI to AGP Controller (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.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (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: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5500] (rev a1)
02:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)

As you can see, the correct video card is there.
Hey, the solution might be as simple as "give up, never going to work" but anything would be better than the darkness I am in now :-)

xorg.conf

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildd@palmer) Tue Jan 22 12:05:14 UTC 2008


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Viewsonic"
ModelName "VA1903wmb"
HorizSync 30.0 - 110.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 150.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Is worth noting that even with this xorg.conf file, I can only get 800x640 resolution, which I find a little weird.

Sorry for the long post, hoping to get all relevant information in first go, am going to keep poking so will post back if I stumble on solution.

Cheers,
Troy

[Chris]

I have found that the nvidia-settings tool can create a decent working xorg.conf pretty easily. Don't use the Ubuntu video settings because it doesn't do TwinView.

You might try the nvidia-settings thing first so you'll know how to do it in the future but this is my whole xorg.conf for reference:


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1600+0; DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, NULL"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection


I have successfully used this with both a GF5700 and 8800 plus dual LCD's. I added an extra metamode which is a mode that has one LCD turned off (useful for certain games when they go fullscreen).

[i,bigfoot]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply, unfortunately still suffering the same problem.
When I enable the restricted nVidia driver and then run the nvidia-settings it tells me i need to run nvidia-xconfig.
I run this (as root) and restart, always to a pair of black screens in place of the login. To get back into machine I need to start the recovery mode from Grub and Xfix, which replaces the xorg.conf.
I tried your xorg.conf without effect (black screens still).

Last resort was an upgrade to Intrepid, however the behavior is exactly the same when it comes to this video card. Guess I should have done the research first.... damn.. out a hundred bux...

Cheers,
Troy

[i,bigfoot]

Ok.. I have got it "working" in a sense.

Enable the version 96 nvidia driver and reboot (recommended one is 173).
This should then allow you to see one of your screens as active, the other simply black.
Once back into Intrepid, use the nvidia-settings utility to configure twin view monitors.

Unfortunately, when I run nvidia-settings using sudo so it can save the configuration then restart X Server, it shows the twin windows however chrome on application windows is not rendered, terminal window isn't rendered properly etc. So, my workaround is simply to use nvidia settings everytime i boot and enable the twin view..... most definitely not a good solution, but one that will have to do for now.

It seems we are waiting on NVidia to update the Intrepid drivers to get this to work correctly ??? (not an authority here, just seems to be what I have read over the last couple of days).

Cheers,
Troy