Notebook Radeon RS200 IGP Dual Head with MergedFB... Perfect!

[Leoncio Juan Ernesto López (Cholo)]

Hi, I sent an email previously anticipating questions about this
but... it's working flawlessly, so... I think I'll just document the
experience briefly.

I have an hp pavilion ze5200 notebook that comes with a

Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon 330M/340M/350M (RS200 IGP)"
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01:05:0
(--) Chipset ATI Radeon IGP330M/340M/350M (U2) 4337 found

video card with VGA and S-Video output (and a flat panel).

I had a problem where it didn't recognize the monitors correctly when
both were connected (i.e. the panel and the CRT simultaneously). What
I was seeing in the log file was:

(II) RADEON(0): Primary:
 Monitor   -- CRT
 Connector -- VGA
  DAC Type  -- Primary
  TMDS Type -- NONE
  DDC Type  -- VGA_DDC
(II) RADEON(0): Secondary:
 Monitor   -- NONE
 Connector -- Proprietary
  DAC Type  -- TVDAC/ExtDAC
  TMDS Type -- NONE
  DDC Type  -- NONE
(II) RADEON(0): PLL parameters: rf=1432 rd=31 min=12000 max=35000; xclk=13300
(WW) RADEON(0): Failed to detect secondary monitor, MergedFB/Clone mode disabled

So there was no flat panel and I have no idea what that "proprietary"
connector may be (S-Video output maybe?)

The solution was trivial, and the only reason it wasn't working was
because of a dyslexic error writing the Option line :D

This makes it work:

Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, CRT"

(for some stupid reason I had completely omitted "MonitorLayout"
without noticing so it wasn't working :-/)

With that line (and MergedFB set to "true") the logs read:

(II) RADEON(0): Primary:
  Monitor   -- LVDS
  Connector -- DVI-I
  DAC Type  -- TVDAC/ExtDAC
  TMDS Type -- NONE
  DDC Type  -- NONE
(II) RADEON(0): Secondary:
 Monitor   -- CRT
 Connector -- VGA
  DAC Type  -- Primary
  TMDS Type -- NONE
  DDC Type  -- VGA_DDC
(II) RADEON(0): PLL parameters: rf=1432 rd=31 min=12000 max=35000; xclk=13300
(II) RADEON(0): MergedFB mode forced on.

and everything works beautifully. :-)

Now... why aren't the monitors detected correctly? is the hardware
doing some nasty thing that confuses the driver?

Finally, I took a photograph of the setup to show off :D

http://www.hidebehind.com/81A14E83

My xorg.conf looks like this: (only the relevant "Device" Section,
there was no need to modify anywhere else, although I guess it may be
necessary in some more complicated cases)

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon 330M/340M/350M
(RS200 IGP)"
        Driver          "radeon"
        BusID           "PCI:1:5:0"
        Option          "AGPMode"       "4"
        Option          "GARTSize"      "64"
        Option          "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, CRT"
        Option          "MergedFB"      "true"
        Option          "CRT2Position"  "RightOf"
EndSection

If you have any advices to tune the setup further, I'd be more than
glad to hear them. :-)

glxinfo reports that DRI is working too.

If you're interested in the whole log file or some other info for
development, "é só pedir", as they say in Brazil. ("just ask")

Saludos,
Cholo.

-- 
"I've got a clan of gingerbread men, here a man, there a man, lots of
gingerbread men; Take a couple if you wish, they're on the dish."
	-- Pink Floyd - Bike