semi-OT: multiple monitors with Dell Inspiron 530

[William Muriithi]

Alexandra

Just curious, would it still work if both cards were not from the same vendor?



On 28/12/2009, Alexandre Cavalcante Alencar <alexandre.alencar-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Hi Giles, how you doing today?
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Giles Orr <gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> Hi Alexandre.
>>
>> 2009/12/27 Alexandre Cavalcante Alencar <alexandre.alencar-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:
>>> I passed this same deception with a Dell OptiPlex 745. I installed a
>>> nVIDIA Dual Head card and the onboard on gone disabled. I asked Dell
>>> support team and they said it's not possible to have onboard and
>>> PCI/PCI-E cards working together. I had to add a second PCI card to
>>> have 3-heads setup.
>>
>> Did you do that?  Did you actually buy and successfully install a PCI
>> video card?  Because my limited testing suggests that the Dell BIOS
>> would disable the PCI-E video card if you used a PCI video card and
>> vice versa.  I have a spare, very old PCI card that I can try, I
>> suppose that would be the sensible thing to do.  I'll try that and
>> report back.
>
> Yes, I have a nVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS PCI-E plus a nVIDIA RIVA TNT2 M64
> installed on an Dell OptiPlex 745 running fine. This system runs
> Debian Lenny plus updates and uses nVIDIA binary driver 185.18.36 (for
> PCI-E card) and nouveau opensource driver (for PCI card). This is
> connected to 3 LG L1953H 19" LCD monitors (DVI, VGA, VGA).
>
>>
>>> If you have more than one PCI-E slots, put 4 heads on it ;)
>>
>> Two or more PCI-E slots cost money.  Dell doesn't spend any more of
>> that than they have to.  I only wish I had another PCI-E slot ...
>>
>> Right at the moment I'm looking at Xdmx, but it's not very promising
>> as it means having to run two computers, and it also would probably
>> make suspending the main machine extremely iffy - I'm not up to
>> writing suspend scripts at all, never mind the level of complexity
>> that would probably be required to re-establish an Xdmx connection
>> after the machine came out of suspend ...
>
> For some Dell's to get a new PCI-E slot it's a pain.
>
>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 1:31 AM, Giles Orr <gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>>> The previously mentioned Samsung monitor is now attached to a Dell
>>>> Inspiron 530 (a desktop, not a laptop).  The machine has built-in
>>>> Intel video, which would have worked fine for my purposes, except I
>>>> wanted dual head.  So I bought a Nvidia 6200 based dual head PCI-E
>>>> card, which I've been reasonably happy with.  I already have two LCDs
>>>> attached to the Dell, but it would appear that it's impossible to add
>>>> a third to this machine.  I've updated the BIOS to the latest version
>>>> and it's still impossible to use the onboard and PCI-E video cards at
>>>> the same time.  If you boot with both connected, a BIOS level warning
>>>> comes up: "oooh, I see you have an add-in card, you couldn't possibly
>>>> want to use this.  To fix this problem please turn off the machine and
>>>> disconnect the built-in card."  Okay, I changed the wording, but
>>>> that's what it says.  You can force it to go on ... and then it
>>>> disables the PCI-E and boots up.  The reverse is also possible: if you
>>>> boot with the PCI-E, the onboard is disabled.  It treats PCI cards the
>>>> same way: "this is the built-in card you don't want to use etc."  So
>>>> it would appear that using three screens on this machine, which was my
>>>> intention, is impossible.
>>>>
>>>> Is there any way to get around this?  So far I've come up with "never
>>>> buy Dell again" - I'm not just forestalling Lennart here, I'm totally
>>>> disgusted with them.  The one good thing about this machine is the
>>>> 2.4GHz C2Q chip, which is wonderful.  The only other option seems to
>>>> be buying a new mobo.  But that would recommend a new case, and
>>>> probably a new video card, memory ... oh wait, that's practically
>>>> buying a new computer.  So no, I don't want to follow that route just
>>>> yet.  But I'd really like to have three monitors ...
>>
>> --
>> Giles
>> http://www.gilesorr.com/
>> gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
>> --
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>
>
>
> --
> Alexandre Alencar (Skarmeth)
> http://blog.alexandrealencar.net/
> http://www.alexandrealencar.net/
> ITIL, CSM, LPI, MCP-I, MCP
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