nvidia-current does not detect hardware capabilities correctly

[Daniel Knittl-Frank]

nvidia-current is unable to use two monitors in full resolution (wuxga + full hd), one will always stay blank. looking into xorg.log, i can see something like:

    [ 89444.991] (WW) NVIDIA(0): Due to hardware capability constraints, disabling display
    [ 89444.991] (WW) NVIDIA(0): device Seiko/Epson (DFP-0) in MetaMode
    [ 89444.991] (WW) NVIDIA(0): "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select@1920x1080+1920+0,DFP-0:1920x1200@1920x1200+0+0".

the same configuration works with nvidia-173, so nvidia-current might not be detecting hardware capabalities correctly. nvidia-173 feels a bit slower than nvidia-current, so i'd like to use nvidia-current. my graphics card is `01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G86M [Quadro FX 360M] (rev a1)`

i'll be glad to give further information, this has bugged me for quite a while. i'm currently running natty, but i've seen this bug since nvidia-current was introduced

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: nvidia-current 270.29-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-5.32-generic-pae 2.6.38-rc6
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-5-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.gpus.0: Error: [Errno 21] Is a directory: '/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0'
.proc.driver.nvidia.registry: Binary: ""
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 270.29 Wed Feb 23 16:16:53 PST 2011
 GCC version: gcc version 4.5.2 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.5.2-3ubuntu3)
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,scale,session,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Tue Mar 1 12:34:01 2011
DistUpgraded: Yes, recently upgraded Log time: 2010-12-25 19:00:20.784814
DistroCodename: natty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 virtualbox-ose, 4.0.4, 2.6.38-5-generic, i686: installed
 virtualbox-ose, 4.0.4, 2.6.38-5-generic-pae, i686: installed
 nvidia-current, 270.29, 2.6.38-5-generic-pae, i686: installed
GraphicsCard:
 nVidia Corporation G86M [Quadro FX 360M] [10de:042d] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01ff]
MachineType: Dell Inc. Precision M4300
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-5-generic-pae root=UUID=f957135d-b762-45ac-9e0d-6979595882aa ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
Renderer: Unknown
SourcePackage: nvidia-graphics-drivers
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-01-13 (46 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 05/23/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A11
dmi.board.name: 0UY141
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd05/23/2008:svnDellInc.:pnPrecisionM4300:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0UY141:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Precision M4300
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.4-0ubuntu2
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.23-1ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.10.1~git20110215.cc1636b6-0ubuntu2
version.nvidia-graphics-drivers: nvidia-graphics-drivers N/A
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6~3ubuntu8
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.0-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.14.0-1ubuntu11
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110107+b795ca6e-0ubuntu5

[Alberto Milone (albertomilone)]

I'm subscribing Nvidia.

@Daniel Dadap: any ideas on the issue?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Can you try removing your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and see if the automatic configuration works better?

Also, test out running Classic Desktop (No effects). If that works, then I wonder if its just a max texture size limitation of the hardware.

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

hi bryce,

no more luck without an xorg.conf, why would it? there's not much in my config, except the driver.

for classic desktop, i am running it already – desktop effects take too much time and resources. i can try if desktop with effects works with nvidia-173 driver, but i'm pretty sure it will (was nvidia-173 updated for the new xserver already?)

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

new "symptom": last week i had a projector plugged in while booting into ubuntu. when i went home i only put my computer to sleep. when using my monitor at home i was then able to run both monitors in full resolution (nvidia-settings was still thinking the projector was plugged in, it would not recognize my monitor)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hey knittl,

You filed this bug report against natty, but I see it's still open and
doesn't appear to have much activity recently. So, now that oneiric
is released and stable, this may be a good point for you to upgrade
and re-test if this issue is still present there.

If it's solved in the new release and you think it's worth backporting
the fix, please indicate that. Or if having the fix in the new release
is good enough, feel free to close out the bug (or let us know and we'll
close it.)

If it's not solved, leave the bug report open. I can't promise we'll
get to it (we get way more bugs filed than we can usually get to), but
your testing and feedback can help out if and when we do.

[bugbot (bugbot)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

I finally took the time to upgrade my Ubuntu install to the recent release 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal). This bug still occurs, and now seems worse then ever. I have skipped (i.e. not tested) the releases 11.10 and 12.04, but I assume those two releases didn't bring any improvement either.

In the past, I've set my builtin monitor (laptop) to a smaller resolution (1680x1050). That way I could run the external monitor at full resolution (1920x1080 full HD) even with nvidia-current driver. Remember: both screens worked fine with full resolution with nvidia-173 (slower) as well as with nouveau (even more slow).

Under Quantal, nouveau cannot handle both screens at full resolution and neither can any of the provided nvidia proprietary drivers. I tested all available options: -current, -current-updates, -experimental-304, and -experimental-310.
I think nouveau managed to run both screens in "mirror"/clone mode, but not sure about the exact resolutions was using.

What's worse, I cannot set my laptop monitor to the smaller resolution like I did in the past, since only "Off", "Auto", and "1920x1200" are shown in nvidia-settings as well as in 'Display' system settings (that's using randr, right?).
Both monitors run, when I set my external monitor to a smaller resolution (currently 1680x1050), but that's not the native resolution and not the correct aspect ratio (16:10 vs 16:9).

And if that was not bad enough, Xorg cannot even start when the external monitor is plugged in. The screen will blink several times and then dump to a black screen with a blinking white cursor. Switching to a VT, unplugging the monitor and starting X (service lightdm start) will finally bring Xorg back up. This is really annoying! (Please imagine a turned on caps lock, to get an idea of my frustration).

The external monitor is connected with a VGA cable if that matters. I cannot use DVI, because my laptop only offers VGA out.

Relevant details from Xorg.0.log after unsuccessfully trying to start X during boot:

[ 97.253] (II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU Quadro FX 360M (G86GL) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)
[ 97.253] (--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 524288 kBytes
[ 97.253] (--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 60.86.68.00.18
[ 97.253] (II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X
[ 97.253] (--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on Quadro FX 360M at PCI:1:0:0
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): QMX Q24 (CRT-0) (connected)
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): TV-0
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): Seiko/Epson (DFP-0) (connected)
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): QMX Q24 (CRT-0): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): TV-0: 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): TV encoder: (null)
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): Seiko/Epson (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): Seiko/Epson (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link LVDS
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1: 165.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 97.359] (--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1: Internal Single Link TMDS
[ 97.359] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[ 97.3...

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

Tested with Quantal and the bug still occurs. See Comment #8 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers/+bug/727112/comments/8)

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

I just performed further tests with a system booted from an USB drive. The bug happens regardless of architecture, both amd64 and i386 are affected.

With the nouveau driver I managed to run both monitors with native resolution, but the external monitor showed graphic errors (see the attached screenshot). Also, the system was feeling very sluggish with two monitors.

xrandr --query --verbose when using the nouveau driver outputs:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1200, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS-1 connected 1920x1200+0+0 (0x65) normal (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
 Identifier: 0x61
 Timestamp: 27086
 Subpixel: unknown
 Gamma: 1.0:1.0:1.0
 Brightness: 1.0
 Clones:
 CRTC: 0
 CRTCs: 0 1
 Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
             0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
             0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
            filter:
 EDID:
  00ffffffffffff004ca3553200000000
  00120103802115780a87f594574f8c27
  27505400000001010101010101010101
  0101010101018c41805871b023406420
  26004bcf100000190000000f00000000
  000000000046d2026400000000fe0059
  323834470031353455320a20000000fe
  0017272f3f5f97afff02010a20200039
 dithering depth: auto
  supported: auto 6 bpc 8 bpc
 dithering mode: auto
  supported: auto off static 2x2 dynamic 2x2
 scaling mode: Full
  supported: None Full Center Full aspect
 color vibrance: 150 (0x00000096) range: (0,200)
 vibrant hue: 90 (0x0000005a) range: (0,180)
  1920x1200 (0x65) 167.8MHz -HSync -VSync *current +preferred
        h: width 1920 start 2020 end 2052 total 2264 skew 0 clock 74.1KHz
        v: height 1200 start 1202 end 1208 total 1235 clock 60.0Hz
  1920x1200 (0x66) 193.2MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1920 start 2056 end 2256 total 2592 skew 0 clock 74.6KHz
        v: height 1200 start 1203 end 1209 total 1245 clock 59.9Hz
  1920x1080 (0x67) 173.0MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1920 start 2048 end 2248 total 2576 skew 0 clock 67.2KHz
        v: height 1080 start 1083 end 1088 total 1120 clock 60.0Hz
  1600x1200 (0x68) 161.0MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1600 start 1712 end 1880 total 2160 skew 0 clock 74.5KHz
        v: height 1200 start 1203 end 1207 total 1245 clock 59.9Hz
  1680x1050 (0x69) 146.2MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1680 start 1784 end 1960 total 2240 skew 0 clock 65.3KHz
        v: height 1050 start 1053 end 1059 total 1089 clock 60.0Hz
  1400x1050 (0x6a) 121.8MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1400 start 1488 end 1632 total 1864 skew 0 clock 65.3KHz
        v: height 1050 start 1053 end 1057 total 1089 clock 60.0Hz
  1280x1024 (0x6b) 109.0MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1280 start 1368 end 1496 total 1712 skew 0 clock 63.7KHz
        v: height 1024 start 1027 end 1034 total 1063 clock 59.9Hz
  1280x960 (0x6c) 101.2MHz -HSync +VSync
        h: width 1280 start 1360 end 1488 total 1696 skew 0 clock 59.7KHz
        v: height 960 start 963 end 967 total 996 clock 59.9Hz
  1152x864 (0x6d) 81.8MHz -HSync +VSync...

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

I tested my graphics card with another external monitor (a Dell 2408WFP) which runs with a native resolution of 1920x1200.

Using that monitor does not exhibit the bug and the driver/graphics card is able to run two monitors simultaneously at 1920x1200 (total resolution: 3840x1200). This shows me, that such a high resolution is definitely supported by my hardware (and by the nvidia-current driver?). But I'm still lost … why does one monitor work and another one with lower resolution does not? My current guess is different frequencies trip up the driver. Is there anybody out there with the slightest clue how to properly troubleshoot this problem?

Interestingly, the Dell monitor does not show EDID data when queried with xrandr.

Output of xrandr --verbose --query can be found below:

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3840 x 1200, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 connected 1920x1200+1920+0 (0x2c8) normal (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 519mm x 324mm
 Identifier: 0x278
 Timestamp: 217095
 Subpixel: unknown
 Gamma: 1.0:1.0:1.0
 Brightness: 1.0
 Clones:
 CRTC: 1
 CRTCs: 0 1
 Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
             0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
             0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
            filter:
 SignalFormat: VGA
  supported: VGA
 ConnectorType: VGA
 ConnectorNumber: 1 (0x00000001)
 _ConnectorLocation: 1 (0x00000001)
  1920x1200 (0x2c8) 154.0MHz +HSync -VSync *current +preferred
        h: width 1920 start 1968 end 2000 total 2080 skew 0 clock 74.0KHz
        v: height 1200 start 1203 end 1209 total 1235 clock 60.0Hz
  1600x1200 (0x2c9) 162.0MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 1600 start 1664 end 1856 total 2160 skew 0 clock 75.0KHz
        v: height 1200 start 1201 end 1204 total 1250 clock 60.0Hz
  1280x1024 (0x2ca) 135.0MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 1280 start 1296 end 1440 total 1688 skew 0 clock 80.0KHz
        v: height 1024 start 1025 end 1028 total 1066 clock 75.0Hz
  1280x1024 (0x2cb) 108.0MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 1280 start 1328 end 1440 total 1688 skew 0 clock 64.0KHz
        v: height 1024 start 1025 end 1028 total 1066 clock 60.0Hz
  1152x864 (0x2cc) 108.0MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 1152 start 1216 end 1344 total 1600 skew 0 clock 67.5KHz
        v: height 864 start 865 end 868 total 900 clock 75.0Hz
  1024x768 (0x2cd) 78.8MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 1024 start 1040 end 1136 total 1312 skew 0 clock 60.0KHz
        v: height 768 start 769 end 772 total 800 clock 75.0Hz
  1024x768 (0x279) 65.0MHz -HSync -VSync
        h: width 1024 start 1048 end 1184 total 1344 skew 0 clock 48.4KHz
        v: height 768 start 771 end 777 total 806 clock 60.0Hz
  800x600 (0x2ce) 49.5MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 800 start 816 end 896 total 1056 skew 0 clock 46.9KHz
        v: height 600 start 601 end 604 total 625 clock 75.0Hz
  800x600 (0x27e) 40.0MHz +HSync +VSync
        h: width 800 start 840 end 968 total 1056 skew 0 clock 37.9KHz
        v: height 600 start 601 end 605 total 62...

[Daniel Knittl-Frank (knittl)]

I finally found a solution/workaround (I can't believe it)!!!

A thread on the nvnews forums discussed a similar problem. One comment suggested setting the option NoExtendedGpuCapabilitiesCheck in xorg.conf to disable mode validation (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2039336&postcount=11).

I can now use both monitors at full/native resolution :)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for nvidia-graphics-drivers (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]