Two monitors on two graphic cards

[harberst]

I've been searching for two days and haven't found an answer yet, but maybe I missed something. If there is already an answer please share it, if this isn't the right place for this question please let me know where I should ask.

Okay so to start with I'm using Ubuntu 11.04. I should have two graphic cards, and they are both detected in the terminal.


lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation C77 [GeForce 8200] [10de:084b] (rev a2)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation G98 [GeForce 8400GS] [10de:10c3] (rev a2)
Both cards have monitors plugged into their VGA ports, but only one of the monitors shows a display. The other monitor goes into power saver mode right after start up. Nvidia X Server settings only shows a single graphics card (the 8200) and a single monitor (detect monitor finds nothing). Going through Prefences: Monitors also only shows a single monitor and doesn't detect a thing when detect monitors is clicked.

Monitor one has 1440 x 900 resolution and I'm not sure what the resolution of Monitor two is supposed to be, but it displays rather nicely at being set to 1440 x 900.

Both graphics cards are detected and usable in Vista, but a quick switch of the plugs shows that only the 8200 is registering in Ubuntu.

Ideally I want to have a dual monitor set up, with one screen showing documents or pictures with the other using Gimp or Blender. Any help in setting this up would be greatly appreciated.

[harberst]

Bump for help please?

I think the main problem is that even though the terminal detects the 2nd card when ordered, it's not in use. How would one go about, well, activating it?

[harberst]

Are ya'll seriously telling (silently) that no one can help with this?

[bcschmerker]

This issue of dual GPU's appears similar to a situation for which I am fielding recommendations (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1776921) (none received as of 15 June 2011), as I have an eMachines®/Acer® EL1210-09 (http://www.emachines.com/) (Advance Micro Devices® Athlon 64® LE-1620, nVIDIA® MCP78S chipset/GeForce® 8200 IGP (http://www.nvidia.com/)) recently rebuilt as a 64-bit Lucid box and now in testing. nVIDIA® supports several generations of GeForce® GPU with a proprietary driver and settings-application package in the Restricted repository. The GeForce® 8200, according to nVIDIA® documentation on Hybrid SLI (Hybrid SLI being supported only in Microsoft® Windows® 6-up), should be able to see the video memory of a PCI-Express x16 add-on card.

Can't comment on seeing dual GPU's in xserver-xorg-nv, as the dual-GPU situation is quite new to me.

[harberst]

bcsmerker: Thanks for the reply. I've been noticing a lot of issues relating to dual gpus/monitors floating around here.

And all that digging around has led me to a desire to change my question. How can I get the 8400 to register as the main card? I'm seeing a lot of stuff about editing the xconf, but I don't really see any clear and concise (to me anyway) explanations of why/what is going on (I'm very much not a programmer, just an overly curious wannabe writer/artist type). Do I need to muck about with the xconf? If so what (and simple why's) do I need to do? Thank you to anyone who can help.

[lrbh]

Any advance on this? (He asked, hopefully.)