[SOLVED] ATI Radeon X1550/X1650 Dual Head Video Card

[kjacobs]

Hi group....

I recently acquired an ATI Radeon X1550/X1650 dual head video card that I wanted to try and replace my old nvidia dual head card. The hardware scan calls it a X1550, however the internet search says it is a X1650.....it has dual DVI port on board. The pci nvidia card worked ok, but was kind of jittery video playback and sluggish on moving programs back and forth between screens. I was hoping this PCIe Radeon X1650 card would be an improvement with 256MB RAM.

However, I tried to run the Install Drivers option and the new video card is not being discovered for installing drivers.

How can I run this ATI Radeon X1550 card and how would I best remove the Nvidia X server option that was installed with the previous card I was using?

Thanks in advance..........

Ken

[kjacobs]

WOW! Pretty quiet about fixing this one.....LOL.

I have tried numerous approaches getting this card to work....installing fglrx, etc. I keep getting an error about not having a supported card installed. The card seems to work fine with the default drivers.....except that I cannot get the screen to split. It only works as cloned screens. If I could get the screens to split the desktop, it would be worth testing to see how it performs.

Any ideas? Other than getting away from ATI cards...... ;D

[Trip]

Not too sure about the ATI stuff but to get rid of everything Nividia I usually open up a terminal and do..
apt-get purge nvidia*

It might need a space in-between nvidia and *??

Hope that helps.

[anon222]

Hi group....

I recently acquired an ATI Radeon X1550/X1650 dual head video card that I wanted to try and replace my old nvidia dual head card. The hardware scan calls it a X1550, however the internet search says it is a X1650.....it has dual DVI port on board. The pci nvidia card worked ok, but was kind of jittery video playback and sluggish on moving programs back and forth between screens. I was hoping this PCIe Radeon X1650 card would be an improvement with 256MB RAM.

However, I tried to run the Install Drivers option and the new video card is not being discovered for installing drivers.

How can I run this ATI Radeon X1550 card and how would I best remove the Nvidia X server option that was installed with the previous card I was using?

Thanks in advance..........

Ken

Did you uninstall nVidia drivers before replacing the cards?
If you haven't that is the culprit.
When you uninstall the Nvidia, on rebooting , you would revert to the open source driver.
The proper procedure for replacing the nVidia with AMD/Ati graphics card would be:
Uninstall the nVidia driver, shut down, remove the Nvidia card, install the ATI card and reboot, you should start with the default open source driver for your ATI card.
If you still have that Nvidia card, you could install that card again and this time remove the drivers with the graphical tools. That's the easier way.

The second option is to set "nomodeset" kernel option as a temporary solution/workaround until fixing the graphic card.
Once in on the desktop environment remove the additional drivers already installed for Nvidia, reboot.
If you get a blank screen set nomodeset kernel option again on bootup and innstall the Ati drivers.

https://mityer.khdlhfjijfrupr.tk/manual/hardw...l#graphics
Your New graphics card might be a bit old. Check the legacy part in the manual. Maybe AMD doesn't include it in the latest drivers.
If you don't want to use the open source drivers you might need to download and install legacy drivers from AMD website.

[valtam]

Remove nVidia:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

[kjacobs]

Thanks fellas and thanks for the input....

I have run the recipe (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshootin...om_scratch) to clear all the proprietary drivers and rebooted. Presently this is what I am showing in terminal....

kenneth@kenneth-OptiPlex-755:~$ sudo lshw -C display
[sudo] password for kenneth:
  *-display:0           
      description: VGA compatible controller
      product: RV515 [Radeon X1300/X1550]
      vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
      physical id: 0
      bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
      version: 00
      width: 64 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
      configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
      resources: irq:16 memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fe9e0000-fe9effff ioport:dc00(size=256) memory:fea00000-fea1ffff
  *-display:1 UNCLAIMED
      description: Display controller
      product: RV515 [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series] (Secondary)
      vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
      physical id: 0.1
      bus info: pci@0000:01:00.1
      version: 00
      width: 64 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: pm pciexpress bus_master cap_list
      configuration: latency=0
      resources: memory:fe9f0000-fe9fffff
kenneth@kenneth-OptiPlex-755:~$

So as far as I can tell, this is running the open driver and "seeing" the card fine. Not sure about the UNCLAIMED display:1.....I presently have cloned displays on my 2 screens. I have tried setting unchecking mirror displays in DISPLAY, but cannot seem to get it to extend the desktop on the two screens....

Ken

[kjacobs]

OK.....this is definitely a little finicky, but I finally have gotten the 2 screens to be an extended desktop. I have found that I have to uncheck use the primary display, let it come go black and come back on.....then I can uncheck mirror the displays and have it work as an extended desktop. However, at reboot it reverts back to 2 cloned screens instead of extended. I am not sure how to get that to be a permanent change?  ???

The other thing of note is the Desktop Settings for changing the wallpaper seems to be very tricky. While there are options to choose other folders, the images in those other folders are all greyed out and non-useable. The only way I have been able to "share" the images is to place all the images in my HOME folder. If I span both screens with the image from my primary, it seems to work fine.

[anon222]

There is a section in the manual on dual monitor setup
https://mityer.khdlhfjijfrupr.tk/manual/hardw...almonitors

[kjacobs]

Hi Misko and thanks for the link.....this is the procedure I have been using to set the monitors. The problem is that the settings don't "stick" or stay after a reboot. The monitors revert back to mirrored after a reboot and I have to reset the dual monitor setup every time the computer restarts.

I need to know how to get these settings to be permanent........

Ken

[anon222]

Use arandr

Code:

sudo apt-get install arandr

Once installed start it from the menu or command line

Code:

arandr

Move the monitors to the desired position using drag and drop.
When you're done, select Layout > Apply
The changes are not saved and will be lost once you logout/restart the computer.
To make them permanent, from the Arandr menu select Layout > Save As, enter a name for this layout and save it.
This creates a script under ~/.screenlayout
Add this script to your startup items:
Session and Startup > Applications Autostart - click "Add", under "Name" enter whatever you want and under "Command", enter the exact path to the script created.
for examplee ~/.screenlayout/screenlayout.sh