semi-OT: multiple monitors with Dell Inspiron 530

Mon Dec 28 19:37:51 UTC 2009

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 3:15 PM, William Muriithi
<william.muriithi-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Alexandra
>             ^^
               ^^
   Alexandre

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

It may work, but for simplifying problems, I choose to use same
chipset brand. But I just used SiS and nVIDIA together without
problems (and 3D for SiS).

>
>
> 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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>
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-- 
Alexandre Alencar (Skarmeth)
http://blog.alexandrealencar.net/
http://www.alexandrealencar.net/
ITIL, CSM, LPI, MCP-I, MCP
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists