Xorg.conf (nvidia) Second Monitor getting settings of first

Question

I've been spending the weekend (and some time before that) trying to set up my Korean QHD270 and Benq G2222HDL monitors with Ubuntu 13.10.

With the nouveau drivers install both monitor function perfectly fine. After installing the nvidia drivers the Benq works but the QHD270 does not.

Now, after days of struggling I managed to get the QHD270 to work following a mixture of blogs, particularly; this one and learnitwithme. Now, unfortunatly my G2222HDL does not work. I fixed the QHD270 by supplying a custom EDID, my xorg.conf looks like so (excluding keyboard and mouse):

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen  "Default Screen" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
     Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Configured Video Device"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Option "CustomEDID" "DFP:/etc/X11/edid-shimian.bin"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Default Screen"
    Device "Configured Video Device"
    Monitor "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Now, I tried defining a new Device,Monitor and Screen then in ServerLayout adding Screen "Second Screen" RightOf "Default Screen", but after doing so neither monitor worked.

Hoping to fix the issue using a GUI based tool I opened up NVIDIA X Server Settings, which shows my current layout as:

It seems that something is being output to the monitor, as suggested by my print screen:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

---

Output of xrandr:

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 5120 x 1440, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 connected primary 2560x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm
   2560x1440      60.0*+
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-0 connected 2560x1440+2560+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm
   2560x1440      60.0*+
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

And an extract from my log file (perhaps this is relevant?)

[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on GeForce GTX 680 at PCI:2:0:0
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     CRT-0
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     ACB QHD270 (DFP-0) (boot, connected)
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     DFP-1
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     DFP-2
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     DFP-3
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0):     DFP-4
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0: 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): ACB QHD270 (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): ACB QHD270 (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link TMDS
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1: 165.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1: Internal Single Link TMDS
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-2: 165.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-2: Internal Single Link TMDS
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-3: 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-3: Internal Single Link TMDS
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-4: 960.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[     7.862] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-4: Internal DisplayPort

Solution

You may try using the following xorg.conf. It configures two Screen and a ServerLayout section to manage them.

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia0"
    Driver     "nvidia"
    Option     "CustomEDID" "DFP:/etc/X11/edid-shimian.bin"
    Option      "RenderAccel"              "true"
    Option      "UseEdidFreqs"             "true"
    Option      "MetaModes"     "2055x1440,1920x1080;1366x768,1366x768;1024x768,1024x768"
    Screen     0
    BusID      PCI:2:0:0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia1"
    Driver     "nvidia"
    Option      "RenderAccel"              "true"
    Option      "UseEdidFreqs"             "true"
    Option      "MetaModes"     "2055x1440,1920x1080;1366x768,1366x768;1024x768,1024x768"
    Screen     1
    BusID      PCI:2:0:0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "Monitor0"
    Option     "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "Monitor1"
    Option     "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "nvidia0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth  24
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth      24
        Modes      "2055x1440" "1920x1080" "1366x768" "1024x768" 
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen1"
    Device     "nvidia1"
    Monitor    "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth  24
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth      24
        Modes      "2055x1440" "1920x1080" "1366x768" "1024x768" 
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "ServerLayout0"
    Screen     0 "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen     1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice "Configured Mouse" "CorePointer"
    Option     "Xinerama"
EndSection

I may be missing something, so you will have to test this out. I used the confs from here as reference.

Another approach you may try is configuring your monitors manually, using xrandr. You will have to configure another Monitor section and even the second Device section without the EDID, nonetheless. But the command line would be:

$ xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --primary --mode 2560x1440 --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1080 --right-of DVI-I-1

or even in multiple lines as:

$ xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --primary --mode 2560x1440
$ xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1080 --right-of DVI-I-1

EDIT: Added MetaModes to Device section, and SubSection with modes to Screen section.

Comments

[HennyH]

@fboventura I just tried using that config file, it had the same result as the one I tried. After rebooting the QHD270 did not work but the Benq did but it displays a 'Running in low graphics mode, configuration settings could not be determined' or something like that. Also with the xrandr it says xrandr: cannot find mode 1920x1080

[fboaventura]

@HennyH just the xrandr throws something different? And, are the monitors plugged on the proper DVI ports? I assumed your Benq is plugged on the second port DVI-D-0. You may try switching them.

[fboaventura]

@HennyH changed some configurations. But, the suggestion from errikos above is valid.

[HennyH]

I just gave that new xorg.conf a go, had the same issuse as with the last version :(. I've looked into using the display settings to configure the monitors but I can't get it to work.

[fboaventura]

@HennyH there are some files you may check: /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and ~/.config/monitors.xml. The last may be removed, and it will be recreated at the next X restart. Lookig at the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file may also tell which devices, drivers, monitors Xorg is detecting, if you wish you may paste your log on some pastebin. Another alternative is to remove the actual Xorg.conf and, from your started X, run sudo X :2 -configure and take a look on what is being detected and make adjusts.