No video output through second card

[Himilou]

Hello all,
New here and fairly new to debian and linux.

Been banging my head against the wall on this for a couple of days now. No matter what I try I cannot get any output through an add in pcie graphics card on this system though at least with debian I can use the onboard display! I have tried Ubuntu 18.04 and the latest Fedora with no luck ( didnt last long in Fedora when I realized all the differences

Anyway this is a Dell r720 with a Matrox G200e onboard display adapter and Im using the KDE Plasma desktop. I have tried several older cards including an nvidia quadro p400, an ATI Firepro V3900, and an Radeon HD 4670. With the Nvidia card the machine fails to boot to the desktop with both proprietary and ope-source drivers.
with the ATI cards I can get a driver loaded but cannot get the graphic shell to recognize it, Display Settings only shows the Monitor connected to the onboard adapter.
Things I have tried with the HD4670
both dvi and hdmi outputs to the same and different monitors.
older proprietary driver ( not compatible with kernel or xserver version so I skipped this )
installed the Ati microcode firmware ( this got the card showing in lshw ) open source driver already installed
https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

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sudo dmesg | grep -E 'drm|radeon' | grep -iE 'firmware|microcode'
[    2.407203] [drm] Loading RV730 Microcode
[    2.407227] radeon 0000:05:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/RV730_pfp.bin
[    2.407240] radeon 0000:05:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/RV730_me.bin
[    2.407251] radeon 0000:05:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/R700_rlc.bin
[    2.407268] radeon 0000:05:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/RV730_smc.bin
[    2.410083] radeon 0000:05:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/RV710_uvd.bin

switched the display manager from sddm to lightdm ( ran dpkg reconfigure lightdm and rebooted )

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sudo lshw -c display

  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RV730 XT [Radeon HD 4670]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       version: 00
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
       resources: iomemory:3ff0-3fef irq:52 memory:3fff0000000-3ffffffffff memory:dafe0000-dafeffff ioport:ec00(size=256) memory:da000000-da01ffff
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: G200eR2
       vendor: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=mgag200 latency=64 maxlatency=32 mingnt=16
       resources: irq:19 memory:d4000000-d4ffffff memory:dbffc000-dbffffff memory:db000000-db7fffff memory:c0000-dffff

xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0x79 cap: 0x0 crtcs: 1 outputs: 1 associated providers: 0 name:modesetting
Provider 1: id: 0x44 cap: 0x0 crtcs: 2 outputs: 3 associated providers: 0 name:ATI RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670] @ pci:0000:05:00.0

xrandr --listmonitors
Monitors: 1
 0: +*VGA-1 1680/509x1050/286+0+0  VGA-1

Since xrandr sees the provider but not the output I tried

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 xrandr --newmode "forceout" 106.50  1440 1520 1672 1904  900 903 909 934 +hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DVI-1-0 forceout
xrandr: cannot find output "DVI-1-0"

xrandr --output DVI-1-0 --mode forceout 

but no effect there either. I think there is a clue in the Xorg.0.log file but I dont know what to do about it.

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[     4.930] 	ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
[     4.930] (==) RADEON(G0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[     4.930] (II) RADEON(G0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pixmaps)
[     4.930] (==) RADEON(G0): Default visual is TrueColor
[     4.930] (==) RADEON(G0): RGB weight 888
[     4.930] (II) RADEON(G0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC)
[     4.930] (--) RADEON(G0): Chipset: "ATI RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670]" (ChipID = 0x9490)
[     4.930] (II) Loading sub module "fb"
[     4.930] (II) LoadModule: "fb"
[     4.930] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfb.so
[     4.930] (II) Module fb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[     4.930] 	compiled for 1.20.4, module version = 1.0.0
[     4.930] 	ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
[     4.930] (II) RADEON(G0): GPU accel disabled or not working, using shadowfb for KMS
[     4.930] (II) Loading sub module "shadow"
[     4.930] (II) LoadModule: "shadow"
[     4.931] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libshadow.so
[     4.931] (II) Module shadow: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[     4.931] 	compiled for 1.20.4, module version = 1.1.0
[     4.931] 	ABI class: X.Org ANSI C Emulation, version 0.4
[     4.931] (II) RADEON(G0): KMS Color Tiling: disabled
[     4.931] (II) RADEON(G0): KMS Color Tiling 2D: disabled
[     4.932] (II) RADEON(G0): Output HDMI-1-0 has no monitor section
[     4.952] (II) RADEON(G0): Output VGA-1-1 has no monitor section
[     4.981] (II) RADEON(G0): Output DVI-1-0 has no monitor section
[     4.981] (WW) RADEON(G0): 3 ZaphodHeads crtcs unavailable. Some outputs will stay off.
[     4.982] (II) RADEON(G0): EDID for output HDMI-1-0
[     5.004] (II) RADEON(G0): EDID for output VGA-1-1
[     5.033] (II) RADEON(G0): EDID for output DVI-1-0

I'll attach the xorg file in full. Its interesting to note that when the Radeon card is attached to the acer monitor it enumerates the display modes on the monitor. You can tell this by the 1400 x 900 resolution not supported by my Samsung.

If there is any interest in this same information from my Ubuntu install I will add it. Here is a link to the Ubuntu flavor question on the same problem.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1198031 ... configurat

Appreciate any assistance and Happy Holidays !

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Can you disable the onboard graphics from the firmware ("BIOS") menus?

Nice OP btw

[Himilou]

Thanks!

I can do that but I usually prefer to get the add in card working first. This is a dell server and if you disable on board video and the add in card does not work you cannot just pull the add in, you have to set the clear nvram jumper, post a couple of times, and then reboot so kinda painful.

[CwF]

Actually it's a good idea to leave the matrox active. I have a few, not Dells, and the bios's can control what gpu. On one 7 slot I can put gpu's in any slot, boot the matrox and then switch. Any failure at least leaves a prompt on the matrox. You can add the busid to an xorg.conf file. On mine I can add the id, log out, and lightdm will post the greeter on the non-matrox card. You can then delete the busid, log out, repeat. So with a poor bios it will post to the onboard at boot and then give the greeter on the pci-e card. An LVM passkey prompt could then be on the matrox btw.

something like:

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Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
	Identifier  "Card0"
	Driver      "radeon"
	BusID       "PCI:5:0:0"
EndSection

[Himilou]

I would like to give this a shot but
I dont have the xorg.conf file you mentioned.

and after I label the ati card0 or whatever how do I tie it to the display?

will I need to use xrandr and --addmode plus output?

Thanks in advance!

[CwF]

You do have enable/disable in the bios for
"Embedded Video Controller"
So that's an option, from your description it is one of those stupid bios's that doesn't search. Some do, and it can take minutes to fall back to the onboard.

create the file usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/52-pcie_video.conf
or alternatively at etc/wherever/whatever hoas says to put it, I can't remember...

Preload a root terminal, if you have one, with a history entry to edit the file using nano or whatever. Then when you're dumped to the terminal on the matrox display you log on as root, if you have the account...and arrow up to the command, comment or change the file, and log off.

There should be no other xorg file from propriety drivers or anything else, just a default xorg driver set. Lightdm does pick up the change, others or none I don't know. Reboots are not required, just log off and on. I've ran multiple gpu's and flipped through them is a single session. Works for me!

See what resolution it defaults to and go from them there. I don't need to use xdandr.

[Himilou]

Thanks,
This did indeed help me find out that the ati driver will work for this card.
I did exactly what you suggested, created /user/share/X11./xorg.d.config/52-pcie_video.conf It contains this

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Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
   Identifier  "Card0"
   Driver      "radeon"
   BusID       "PCI:5:0:0"
EndSection

the
When I rebooted the machine posted on the matrox and then switched to the radeon and showed the logon screen through the ati card.
as you probably knew but I did not. Now I see the DVI output in displays but not the matroxs VGA.
OF NOTE.
xrandr now shows just one provider and thats the Ati card.
realizing that this is now a linux config issue I did some experimentation ( no research just guesswork )

I tried randr --output to the matrox. No go even with adding a mode and creating a mode.

I created a second conf file called 51-pcie_video.conf with settings that would work for the matrox. NO GO dm service would fail NOTE apparently any file in here starting with a number will be processed. I tried remaming the 51 file to ---.skip and as long as it was present sddm would not load. The matrox settings did work if it was the only file \ entry and this causes output on the regular montitor.

I tried adding a seperate section to the same 52 file

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Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
   Identifier  "Card0"
   Driver      "radeon"
   BusID       "PCI:5:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
   Identifier  "Card1"
   Driver      "mg200"
   BusID       "PCI:C:0:0"
EndSection

No go causes sddm failure, I also tried creating a device1 section same results.

Then I tried putting the 2 sections together. No Go and a dm startup loop that I had to power off to excape.

( posting and rebooting will edit shortly )

There are also some files that are similar to the conf file you suggested in that directory, an amd64.conf and a radeon.conf. There is no file for the matrox
so I created one

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Section "OutputClass"
	Identifier "G200eR2"
	MatchDriver "mgag200"
	Driver "mgag200"
EndSection

This once again works for the Matrox but does not allow for both cards.

[CwF]

There are also some files that are similar to the conf file you suggested in that directory,

Tread lightly in there. To use both you'd need to add a screen section, at which point you should have a full custom /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

You could also take a look at multi-seat configuration for ideas to use both.

On my current box's the extra cards are for vm's, another way to utilize both. The vm's then have two gpu's and I use a similar method to use the hardware as passed, and have a software qxl gpu function as fall back similar to how the matrox can be used as I do with the test board.

Generally I wouldn't look forward to using the matrox, I'm just recommending to leave it active since when you know how to jump gpu's in the session it makes testing much faster. Having a way to get to a prompt on the matrox can save you when you're playing, but a dual head or better video card in the slot will serve you better.

[Himilou]

I am headed the same direction as you, my Dell r710 already runs passthrough to Vms, the house is mint, kvm is the hypervisor. What ticks me off is that the crappy ( but better than matrox ) cards work as a second card next to the matrox with no issues, the r720 is a full generation newer and had some actual support for add in video cards but alas...

[CwF]

I am headed the same direction as you

I graduated to pcie gpu's for the host.
I have two matrox equipped systems left over. I kept one with a damaged socket but with 7x16 slots running on socket1. That's an open test bench I seldom use. The other I made a custom install for xp and use it as my only optical,FLOPPY, ide/pata/scsi/sata equiped future/retro thing. It's a beast. I do periodically test debians on that.
Moving onward my primary always on single box has been dual nvidia for the last few years. I have its replacement almost done and it has 3 gen3x16 AMD's. I still have to build some details, but so far so good. The AMD's power management is way ahead of brain dead nvidia's, a major factor when packing this much in a single chassis.
At this build level you do need a board with a full feature bios to select primary gpu. Also being able to control xeon power ratings, clocks, and threads can help tuning to avoid meltdown. Also a 4U chassis can be made to run virtually silent instead of imitating a vacuum cleaner.