Arch Linux

Dave Cohen

Member

Registered: 2008-09-27

Posts: 126

No signal from second video card

I'm resurrecting an ancient machine, putting Arch on it and making it useful again.

The VGA output is flakey, not working at the highest resolution my monitor can support.  And I found an old PCI video card and threw it into the machine, hoping it would be better.  Trouble is, I get no signal at all from the second card.  Nothing sent to the monitor at all.

Running lspci, I see both VGA cards:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880B [AudioPCI] (rev 04)
02:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01)

The Intel Corporation 82845G is the one that partially works (for example I have to specify a resolution on the kernel boot line, otherwise the monitor says "invalid mode").

The Voodoo 3 sends nothing at all to the monitor.  No console when booting up.  I haven't found any errors in the log.  Since lspci finds the card, what else do I need to do to make it work?

Thanks for any help.  -Dave

Dave Cohen

Member

Registered: 2008-09-27

Posts: 126

Re: No signal from second video card

Still having no luck with the video card.  But some additional info...

When I run, lspci -v, I don't see "Kernel driver in use" (which I do see for my first graphics card and most of the other devices listed).

02:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo3 3000 PCI
	Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 22
	Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
	Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
	I/O ports at 2800 [size=256]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at e0110000 [disabled] [size=64K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

However, I am loading the tdfx driver.  I see these lines in dmesg...

[    4.708446] pci 0000:02:0a.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
[    4.708487] pci 0000:02:0a.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
[    4.708499] pci 0000:02:0a.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    4.708823] [drm] Initialized tdfx 1.0.0 20010216 for 0000:02:0a.0 on minor 0

Not sure how to troubleshoot this any further.

ConnorBehan

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Long Island NY

Registered: 2007-07-05

Posts: 1,359

Website

Re: No signal from second video card

A missing "kernel driver in use" is not a showstopper. I don't see that for my r128 card but for fb console, regular console and X, it works fine.

I think the issue is simply that the console only wants to use the "primary" display device. The same thing happens for me. When I plug a monitor into a secondary video card, it will work for X and framebuffer console, but not the regular console. I would just try to get the 3dfx card working for the more advanced stuff. Or see if your BIOS has an option to change what the primary device is.

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MisterAnderson

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 285

Re: No signal from second video card

Try looking in the BIOS of your machine to see if there is anything options for which display to initialize first. For example, mine has on option for whether to start the PCI card, PCI-E card or onboard graphics first, and separately whether to disable onboard graphics if it detects an external card. The console will only appear monitors attached to whichever card is the primary.

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