Quad Monitor nVidia on Etch -- UNSTABLE

James Wiggs wiggs at wiggs.org
Thu Jun 1 16:38:48 PDT 2006


 Hello Andy,

   Many thanks for the feedback.  I've already sent this to
nVidia and to the good folks at nvnews.net, along with the output
from nvidia-bug-report.sh.  A friendly fellow with the handle of
Netllama has already gotten back to us with a few suggestions,
which we will be trying this evening.  I will also make use of
your suggestion, but I have a follow-up question: what exactly do
you mean by "one X screen" on each GPU?  You don't mean it will
only drive one of the *monitors*, right?  Are we talking about
each GPU driving a pair of merged monitors with nView, but the
two "paired sets" of screens will be clones?  That is, monitors
A & B are on a splitter driven by GPU 1, C & D on GPU 2; A & B
will be merged as "one X screen", C & D will be "one X screen",
but then what about A&B + C&D?  Clones?  Merged?  Will I need to
use Xinerama for that?  If so, what sort of problems come up with
that?  I may be reading too much into what you're saying; I'll
wait to hear your reply.

thanks,
Jim

On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 11:04 -0700, Andy Ritger wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> Your question is probably better asked either on the nvnews.net
> forums, or sent to the linux-bugs NVIDIA email address.
> 
> One very useful piece of information would be an
> nvidia-bug-report.log, generated by running `nvidia-bug-report.sh`;
> this will also capture any error messages printed to your kernel logs
> (e.g., any cache aliasing errors, etc).
> 
> I'd recommend posting your question on the nvnews.net Linux forums,
> and include an nvidia-bug-report.log.
> 
> Also, nvidia-xconfig should probably do a better job in handling
> this, but note that separate X screens and TwinView are mutually
> exclusive.  It would probably be best to configure it like this:
> 
>     nvidia-xconfig --enable-all-gpus --no-separate-x-screens --twinview
>                                        ^^
> 
> This will configure one X screen on each GPU, with TwinView enabled
> on each X screen.
> 
> I hope that helps,
> - Andy Ritger
> 
> 
> On Thu, 1 Jun 2006, James Wiggs wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> >  Folks,
> > 
> >    I am trying to get a quad-monitor system running using the PNY
> > Quadro NVS 440 PCI Express x16 video card.  Here are the system
> > specs:
> > 
> > Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI
> > P/S: Aspire ATX-AS520W Blue 520 Watt
> > CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
> > RAM: 4 x 1GB DDR 400 Unbuffered
> > Card: nVidia Quadro NVS 440 PCI Express x16 (manufacturer: PNY)
> > OS: Debian Etch, i386 install (NOT x64_64)
> > X.org: 6.9.0
> > Kernel: 2.6.15-8-686-smp
> > nVidia driver: Latest as of 5/30/06 (1.0-8762)
> > Monitors: 4 x Benq FP93G
> > 
> >    After doing the initial installation of Debian, I downloaded
> > the binary driver installer directly from the nVidia website, and
> > ran it without any errors.  X however, is horrifically unstable
> > when running all four monitors as a contiguous desktop.  After
> > only a few minutes, it freezes up.  Most times, the mouse will
> > still move but windows are unresponsive and the keyboard does
> > not work; sometimes, not even the mouse responds.  I have to log
> > in via SSH, where I find Xorg taking 100% of one core on the CPU
> > and I have to do a kill -9 to stop it.
> > 
> >    I generated 2 different xorg.conf files, using the installed
> > nvidia-xconfig utility with these commands:
> > 
> > Xinerama Command: nvidia-xconfig --enable-all-gpus --separate-x-screens --xinerama
> > 
> > TwinView Command: nvidia-xconfig --enable-all-gpus --separate-x-screens --twinview
> > 
> >    The configuration files are included below.  When researching
> > the problem, I found a lot of postings on message boards and on
> > mailing lists mentioning that turning off the RenderAccel option
> > had produced a stable system.  So each of these configurations
> > was tested in two modes; once with the default (RenderAccel On),
> > and once with Option "RenderAccel" "Off" in each of the Device
> > sections.  None of the 4 configurations was found to be stable,
> > though there seemed to be a minor increase in stability for the
> > last configuration we tried, which was using TwinView with the
> > RenderAccel option turned off.  That one ran for about 1.5 hours
> > before it froze.  Most of the others froze in a matter of just a
> > few minutes.
> > 
> >    I realize that not a lot of people are using quad-head nVidia
> > cards under Linux, but I refuse to believe we are the only ones
> > on the planet.  I need some sort of feedback from the experts on
> > this.  Does anyone see anything in the configuration files that
> > raises a red flag?  The Xinerama-based configuration was not
> > changed in any way from what was produced by the nvidia-xconfig
> > utility (other than the RenderAccel Off test).  The TwinView
> > configuration had one edit made: the configuration produced by
> > nvidia-xconfig included a MetaModes "1024x768, 1024x768" line in
> > each Device section, which was hand-modified to replace all the
> > 1024x768 strings with 1280x1024.
> > 
> >    I don't get any significant log output at the time of the
> > lockup; it's like X doesn't even recognize that there is any
> > error occuring.  I tried a kill -11 to see if I could get a
> > backtrace, but this was all that ended up being produced:
> > 
> > ----------begin text----------
> >    *** If unresolved symbols were reported above, they might not
> >    *** be the reason for the server aborting.
> > 
> > Backtrace:
> > 0: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x88) [0x8089898]
> > 1: [0xffffe420]
> > 
> > Fatal server error:
> > Caught signal 11.  Server aborting
> > 
> > 
> > Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
> >        at http://wiki.X.Org
> >  for help.
> > Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
> > 
> > (II) Screen 0 shares mem & io resources
> > (II) Screen 1 shares mem & io resources
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089ac, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089ac, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089e4, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089e4, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089f4, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x000089f4, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 7, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x00008a20, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 7, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x00008a20, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x00008a30, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 6, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x00008a30, 0)
> > (WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 7, 0x8000, 0x000093ac, 0x00008a54, 0)
> > -----------end text-----------
> > 
> >    Note, NO unresolved symbols are mentioned in the X startup log,
> > which I have not included with this posting to keep the length down
> > to some sort of reasonable length.
> > 
> > 
> >    HERE IS THE Xinerama xorg.conf:
> > 
> > ----------begin text----------
> > # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
> > # nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister at builder3)  Mon May 15 13:23:42 PDT 2006
> > 
> > # xorg.conf (Xorg X Window System server configuration file)
> > #
> > # This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
> > # values from the debconf database.
> > #
> > # Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
> > # (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
> > #
> > # This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
> > # if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
> > # package.
> > #
> > # If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
> > # again, run the following commands as root:
> > #
> > #   cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.custom
> > #   md5sum /etc/X11/xorg.conf >/var/lib/xfree86/xorg.conf.md5sum
> > #   dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
> > 
> > Section "ServerLayout"
> >     Identifier     "Default Layout"
> >     Screen      0  "Screen0"
> >     Screen      1  "Screen0 (2nd)" RightOf "Screen0"
> >     Screen      2  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0 (2nd)"
> >     Screen      3  "Screen1 (2nd)" RightOf "Screen1"
> >     InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
> >     InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Files"
> > 
> > 			# local font server
> > 	# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
> >     FontPath        "unix/:7100"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Module"
> >     Load           "bitmap"
> >     Load           "dbe"
> >     Load           "ddc"
> >     Load           "evdev"
> >     Load           "extmod"
> >     Load           "freetype"
> >     Load           "glx"
> >     Load           "int10"
> >     Load           "record"
> >     Load           "type1"
> >     Load           "vbe"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "ServerFlags"
> >     Option         "Xinerama" "1"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "InputDevice"
> >     Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
> >     Driver         "keyboard"
> >     Option         "CoreKeyboard"
> >     Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
> >     Option         "XkbModel" "pc104"
> >     Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "InputDevice"
> >     Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
> >     Driver         "mouse"
> >     Option         "CorePointer"
> >     Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
> >     Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
> >     Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
> >     Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Monitor"
> >     Identifier     "Monitor0"
> >     VendorName     "Unknown"
> >     ModelName      "Unknown"
> >     HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
> >     VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
> >     Option         "DPMS"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Monitor"
> >     Identifier     "Monitor1"
> >     VendorName     "Unknown"
> >     ModelName      "Unknown"
> >     HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
> >     VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
> >     Option         "DPMS"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device0"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> >     BusID          "PCI:3:0:0"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"    "false"
> >     Screen          0
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device0 (2nd)"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> >     BusID          "PCI:3:0:0"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"    "false"
> >     Screen          1
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device1"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> >     BusID          "PCI:4:0:0"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"    "false"
> >     Screen          0
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device1 (2nd)"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> >     BusID          "PCI:4:0:0"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"    "false"
> >     Screen          1
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen0"
> >     Device         "Device0"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor0"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen0 (2nd)"
> >     Device         "Device0 (2nd)"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor0"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen1"
> >     Device         "Device1"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor1"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen1 (2nd)"
> >     Device         "Device1 (2nd)"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor1"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > -----------end text-----------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    HERE IS THE TwinView xorg.conf:
> > 
> > ----------begin text----------
> > # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
> > # nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister at builder3)  Mon May 15 13:23:42 PDT 2006
> > 
> > # xorg.conf (Xorg X Window System server configuration file)
> > #
> > # This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
> > # values from the debconf database.
> > #
> > # Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
> > # (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
> > #
> > # This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
> > # if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
> > # package.
> > #
> > # If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
> > # again, run the following commands as root:
> > #
> > #   cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.custom
> > #   md5sum /etc/X11/xorg.conf >/var/lib/xfree86/xorg.conf.md5sum
> > #   dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
> > 
> > Section "ServerLayout"
> >     Identifier     "Default Layout"
> >     Screen      0  "Screen0"
> >     Screen      1  "Screen0 (2nd)" RightOf "Screen0"
> >     Screen      2  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0 (2nd)"
> >     Screen      3  "Screen1 (2nd)" RightOf "Screen1"
> >     InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
> >     InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Files"
> > 
> > 			# local font server
> > 	# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
> >     FontPath        "unix/:7100"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
> >     FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Module"
> >     Load           "bitmap"
> >     Load           "dbe"
> >     Load           "ddc"
> >     Load           "evdev"
> >     Load           "extmod"
> >     Load           "freetype"
> >     Load           "glx"
> >     Load           "int10"
> >     Load           "record"
> >     Load           "type1"
> >     Load           "vbe"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "ServerFlags"
> >     Option         "Xinerama" "1"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "InputDevice"
> >     Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
> >     Driver         "keyboard"
> >     Option         "CoreKeyboard"
> >     Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
> >     Option         "XkbModel" "pc104"
> >     Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "InputDevice"
> >     Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
> >     Driver         "mouse"
> >     Option         "CorePointer"
> >     Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
> >     Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
> >     Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
> >     Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Monitor"
> >     Identifier     "Monitor0"
> >     VendorName     "Unknown"
> >     ModelName      "Unknown"
> >     HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
> >     VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
> >     Option         "DPMS"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Monitor"
> >     Identifier     "Monitor1"
> >     VendorName     "Unknown"
> >     ModelName      "Unknown"
> >     HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
> >     VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
> >     Option         "DPMS"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device0"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"  "false"
> >     BusID          "PCI:3:0:0"
> >     Screen          0
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device0 (2nd)"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"  "false"
> >     BusID          "PCI:3:0:0"
> >     Screen          1
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device1"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"  "false"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> >     BusID          "PCI:4:0:0"
> >     Screen          0
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >     Identifier     "Device1 (2nd)"
> >     Driver         "nvidia"
> >     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
> >     BoardName      "Quadro NVS 440"
> > #    Option         "RenderAccel"  "false"
> >     BusID          "PCI:4:0:0"
> >     Screen          1
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen0"
> >     Device         "Device0"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor0"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     Option         "TwinView" "True"
> >     Option         "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
> >     Option         "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
> > #    Option         "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768"
> >     Option         "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen0 (2nd)"
> >     Device         "Device0 (2nd)"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor0"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     Option         "TwinView" "True"
> >     Option         "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
> >     Option         "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
> > #    Option         "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768"
> >     Option         "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen1"
> >     Device         "Device1"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor1"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     Option         "TwinView" "True"
> >     Option         "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
> >     Option         "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
> > #    Option         "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768"
> >     Option         "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > Section "Screen"
> >     Identifier     "Screen1 (2nd)"
> >     Device         "Device1 (2nd)"
> >     Monitor        "Monitor1"
> >     DefaultDepth    24
> >     Option         "TwinView" "True"
> >     Option         "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
> >     Option         "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
> > #    Option         "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768"
> >     Option         "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
> >     SubSection     "Display"
> >         Depth       24
> >         Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> >     EndSubSection
> > EndSection
> > 
> > -----------end text-----------
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > xorg mailing list
> > xorg at lists.freedesktop.org
> > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
> > 
> 




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