ATI Radeon 9600 Pro problem

[JohnSilver]

Hello everybody,
totally newbie in PCLinuxOS and Linus in general. How can I configure dual monitors? Video card is ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 19" LG flat monitor connected to VGA and 17" LG flat monitor connected to DVI through DVI-VGA adapter. I do not have any output on second monitor. Standard installation of PCLOS 2010 with dkms-fglrx, fglrx-control-center and x11-driver-video-fglrx installed and updated to latest version.

Catalyst Control center does not start with error message "There was a problem initializing Catalyst Control Center Linux edition.  It could be caused by the following.No ATI graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly.Please install the ATI driver appropriate for you ATI hardware, or configure using aticonfig." Command aticonfig --initial -f gives "No supported adapters detected".  X Org X server version is 1.6.5, kernel version 2.6.33.7.

Tried to install Catalyst drivers from ATI website (version 9.3) but does not install with error message about unsupported version. Changing driver to vesa the second monitor works as clone but I would prefer better drivers and extended desktop.

Any suggestion?

Thanks.

[T6]

hello and welcome to the forum!

unfortunately your video card is not supported by amd/ati anymore so the ati/amd driver is not useful for you, they removed support form the main version of the driver because the video card is very old now, more than 5 years and they seem to support only video cards for 3 or 4 years, i know this because i lost support for my ati 9200 in 2007-8(can't remember exactly)

fortunately your video card is supported by the free version of the driver

in pclinux control center/hardware/setup the graphical server/graphics card/vendor/ati/x1950 and earlier covers you

that driver is usually installed and used by default, in this case you can forget about catalyst control center completely

the multiple monitor setup can be done without it if you have installed kde version of pclinux

open kde control center/hardware/display and monitors/multiple monitors

there enable dvi and vga connectors and set resolutions

[JohnSilver]

HI T6 and thanks for your prompt reply.

Not a good start to see that my card is unsupported. Unfortunately, I'm new with Linux even if consider myself as a power user with Windows. What is the KDE control center? Is it the icon at left lower corner "Configure Your Desktop"? When I click it and go to Hardware/Display and Monitors/Multiple Monitors it shows "This module is only for configuring systems with a single desktop spread across multiple monitors. You do not appear to have this configuration". At Hardware/Display and Monitors/Size & Orientation I can find only VGA-0 as active (Connected) but DVI-0 is disabled and grayed out and I cannot enable anything. The video card is configured as Ati Radeon X1950 and earlier.

[T6]

"Not a good start to see that my card is unsupported"

the lack of a amd driver is only responsibility of amd

in fact the driver you probably have for windows is also unsupported, a legacy support driver, just as my ati radeon 9200, same unsupported driver, just different version

the menu you mention, do you have the second monitor connected and turned on when checking the options?

i just tested my netbook and detected perfectly a second monitor when i plugged it and turned it on, detected properly resolution and other stuff

i can't test with dvi, my two monitors are vga and one is stored if the other fails

[JohnSilver]

I'm sorry if I said something wrong. Yes, it is a legacy driver in Windows but it works fine and I can configure everything from the Catalyst Control Center or from right click, desktop properties.

To your question: yes, the second monitor is connected and turned on. In fact, if I change the driver to vesa, the second monitor works fine but as a clone and I cannot configure an extended desktop.

[T6]

i was doing some tests and you need to connect both monitors when you turn on the system

it seems to be failing to establish the hierarchy of the monitor

in the screen i mentioned you must set one as absolute and the other as clone or left or right of the absolute screen

the other menu of multiple screens is enabled when you set one monitor as left or right

about the vesa versus ati x1950 i can't help for the reasons mentioned earlier but yes, this is one of those reasons that ati video cards are not popular on linux, lack of support

most people will tell you that better remove the ati and put a nvidia with much better support

i love ati hardware and i would test other options, specially turn on the system with both monitors connected and see how system handles them, system handles monitors differently when you connect them after system is loaded, also be sure to set one as left or right, clone monitors sometimes is problematic for the different resolutions and refresh rates

in this case my monitor is working at 60hz, just as the lcd monitor on the netbook but system decided to make external monitor the monitor #1 and lcd the #2

[JohnSilver]

Both monitors are connected and on all the time, I never turn them off. They go automatically to power saving mode (off mode) when no video signal is detected.
The 19" monitor connected to the VGA output (identified as VGA-0) is set as absolute. I cannot do anything with the second monitor connected to the DVI output (DVI-0) through a DVI-VGA adapter because nothing is enabled in the configuration screen. I tried to manually modify the xorg.conf adding the second output and monitor and setting it as clone with both LeftOf and RightOf option but no success at all.

Any other suggesstion?

[T6]

not at the moment, lets see if someone with more knowledge and that same video card can help us with this inconvenient

[JohnSilver]

I made some more tests today and noticed something that makes me think that the problem is that the driver does not recognize the signal from the DVI port through a DVI-VGA adapter. I disconnected the other monitor (VGA or D-SUB connection) and started the system only with the monitor connected to the DVI port through DVI-VGA adapter. I could see all the boot sequence and the PCLinuxOS splash screen but as soon as the GUI started, the video signal was not detected and the monitor went off in power save mode. The same thing happens with both monitors connected: the boot sequence and splash screen are visible on both monitors and then the second monitor turns offs because it cannot detect the signal.

When I change driver to vesa, both monitors work fine but only in clone mode. The hardware configuration panel shows only one monitor connected called default-0 and I guess that's why the image is identical. With the ATI Radeon X1950 and earlier driver show VGA-0 as connected and DVI-0 and S-Video as disconnected and disabled. Hope this can shed some more light to the problem.