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Posting here mostly because I'm new to Arch & the Arch forums. If this question belongs in a different forum, please let me know.
I have 2 video cards; an Intel IGD, and an nVidia GTX 750Ti. I have 2 monitors. IGD is connect to 2 monitors, one with HDMI (left monitor) and the other with DVI (right monitor).
Arch installed and boots just fine using UEFI boot. The nouveau drivers are blacklisted both in /etc/modprobe.d (I created a .conf file with "blacklist nouveau" in it) and via /etc/default/grub (in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, I added "modprobe.blacklist=nouveau).
When no monitors are connected to the nVidia card, the system boots beautifully. Display is mirrored on the 2 monitors, like I'd expect. Monitors display at their native resolutions. Module i915 is present, module nouveau is not.
However ... when I connect a DVI cable from nVidia to the left monitor (monitor with HDMI cable from IGD), on system boot things are not as smooth. The initial POST messages render mirrored on the two displays, but as soon as GRUB loads, everything displays via the nVidia card (right monitor is frozen on the POST display, and if I switch input on left monitor to DVI, I see that Arch has booted and get a console; Arch runs just fine). The monitor is still at its native resolution, module nouveau is not loaded, and i915 is.
The motherboard configuration is set to use the IGD as the primary VGA device. I've toyed with this; when it's set to "PCI Express" then the POST messages get displayed via the nVidia card, and nothing is output to the right monitor (it enters power-save mode).
So it looks to me like GRUB is doing something that I don't want here; like GRUB is detecting the presence of the nVidia card if the DVI cable is connected, and decides that's where output is supposed to go. Anyone seen this before, or have suggestions?
TIA
Last edited by wmarler (2015-07-26 06:35:19)
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Looks like it was somehow related to motherboard configuration.
After some poweroff/power on (which I'd done numerous times ... not sure why this one time was different) I was prompted with a message saying that the VGA BIOS on my video card was unable to handle certain settings.
... which I forget, of course. And I didn't take a picture.
Anyway, I didn't do anything. Just rebooted (more accurately: power cycled). The problem went away. The resolution of the POST messages changed, as did the resolution of the GRUB window, but output stays with the IGD now, and doesn't go to the nVidia card.
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