Arch Linux

Wintus

Member

Registered: 2012-04-20

Posts: 5

Dual monitor problem

Hello,

just installed Arch on my pc yesterday but I can't get my second monitor working. In the boot process it just goes black. xrandr says it's disconnected, though it's not. My videocard is HD5870 and I'm using ati's opensource drivers. I tried vesa-drivers too but the picture quality was awful.

examon

Member

Registered: 2011-05-07

Posts: 208

Re: Dual monitor problem

post that output from xrandr please

---

my github stuff

Wintus

Member

Registered: 2012-04-20

Posts: 5

Re: Dual monitor problem

[wintus@grumpy ~]$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 509mm x 286mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1440x900       59.9 
   1280x800       59.8 
   1152x864       75.0 
   1024x768       70.1     60.0 
   800x600        60.3     56.2 
   640x480        66.7     60.0 
   720x400        70.1

Pres

Member

Registered: 2011-09-12

Posts: 423

Re: Dual monitor problem

Just to make sure: monitor connected, plugged in?

Does dmesg say anything about about the port you have it connected to?

For instance, my dmesg says:

[   21.523492] HDMI: detected monitor DELL ST2420L at connection type HDMI

Wintus

Member

Registered: 2012-04-20

Posts: 5

Re: Dual monitor problem

Yes, monitor is plugged in and works but goes blank during boot process, right when it changes the resolution.

I can't seem to get anything out of dmesg:

[wintus@grumpy ~]$ dmesg | grep DVI
[    4.429374] [drm]   DVI-I
[    4.429381] [drm]   DVI-I
[wintus@grumpy ~]$ dmesg | grep monitor
[    0.726768] Initializing network drop monitor service

A couple of months ago both monitors worked out of the box.

Pres

Member

Registered: 2011-09-12

Posts: 423

Re: Dual monitor problem

Didn't see where you said it goes blank during the boot process. This suggests it may be a problem with KMS.

You can try disabling KMS by putting "nomodeset" in your grub line when booting and see if that makes a difference.

Here's the part of the wiki that outlines this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AT … ooting_KMS

Wintus

Member

Registered: 2012-04-20

Posts: 5

Re: Dual monitor problem

Nomodeset did the trick and now I have both monitors detected, but if I have the second monitor enabled the main screen goes haywire. For some reason I can't position them next to each other in the settings.

Pres

Member

Registered: 2011-09-12

Posts: 423

Re: Dual monitor problem

Settings? Do you mean xrandr or KDE settings, Gnome settings? How does the main screen go haywire? Post the output of xrandr with both monitors detected now.

Wintus

Member

Registered: 2012-04-20

Posts: 5

Re: Dual monitor problem

[wintus@grumpy ~]$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1920
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-1 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768       60.0*
   800x600        60.3 
   640x480        59.9 
   512x384       120.0 
   400x300       120.6 
   320x240       120.1 
DVI-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 509mm x 286mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   60.0 
   1440x900       59.9 
   1280x800       59.9 
   1152x864       75.0 
   1024x768       70.1     60.0 
   800x600        60.3     56.2 
   640x480        66.7     59.9 
   720x400        70.1 

Sorry, xfce settings. I tried KDE settings too but no luck.

Pic with both monitors @ 1024x768: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42514072/2012-0 … .34.11.jpg

If I change the resolution from 1024x768 to 1920x1080 the main screen goes nuts. The secondary screen's default resolution is 1280x1024, but I can't even select it.

Pres

Member

Registered: 2011-09-12

Posts: 423

Re: Dual monitor problem

I've never seen anything quite like that. Looks like its still mirroring whats on the first monitor though. Have you tried setting them side by side with xrandr? Would be something like:

xrandr --output DVI-0 --auto --primary --output DVI-1 --auto --left-of DVI-0

"man xrandr" for more info on this.

Also looks like its not fetching the EDID for your second monitor. "xrandr --verbose" may give more info on this.

Also, try searching through your dmesg log and Xorg.0.log for clues. You can post those logs here, but make sure to use code tags.