I have a graphics card based on NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS chip. It has D-SUB, HDMI and DVI connectors.
I don’t use the HDMI.
But when I connect simultaneously the monitor to D-SUB and the TV to DVI, none displays anything.
The manual is not clear about the capabilities of the card.
Is it normal that the card serves only one output? Shall I try to use the HDMI for simultaneous watching (I have to buy a cable for that)?
I think it’s a dualhead so two outputs should work. You say they display nothing, absolutely nothing? What happens when you have the monitor running and then plug in the TV? Do both work separately?
Which version of SUSE? Do you use the proprietary NVIDIA driver? Do you have a xorg.conf, and what’s in it? You’ll need to give us as much info as you can for anyone to be able to help.
Is this openSUSE-11.2 ? Connect both to your computer, and then type “xrandr -q” . What do you get then?
Another possibility, if you are using the proprietary nVidia driver and "xrandr -r " did not work, is to look here: G210m Blank Laptop Display - Page 2 - nV News Forums
Well he does say there’s nothing on the screens when he connects both. So following your instructions might be somewhat difficult 
Possibly, but english is not everyone’s first language, and it is not clear to me if he means BOTH displays black out, or if he means he see’s “nothing” , such as no popup on the main display, and no output on the second display.
So one can assume one under stands everything when reading a post, or one try to make other suggestions in case it is a matter of 1st language vs 2nd language.
All we can do is try to be helpful.
Thanks for answers.
In no way, in any sequence of connection, booting, etc., I get anything on the screens when both the TV and the LCD monitor are connected simultaneously. They show black screens.
When with running monitor I connect the TV, they both go black. A reboot and disconnecting of the TV are required to get the monitor working again.
I am running openSUSE 11.1 64 bit, updated regularly.
I observe the same with 11.2 Live CD with KDE.
I use the latest nVidia driver, downloaded from nVidia’s web site and installed without problems.
However, I haven’t tried to run nvidia-settings.
I will try to get the EDID info and add it to the xorg.conf. I tried a Linux version of EDID reader called read-edid, but the executable didn’t work normally.
I will post the xorg.conf, and the outputs of “xrandr -q” and “xrandr -r” in a few days.
There’s the rub I think. nvidia-settings is the way to go with NVIDIA cards and especially with dual monitors. Don’t even think of using Sax2 or something else. Run nvidia-settings as root (if you don’t, your configuration won’t be saved to xorg.conf) with one monitor first, make sure everything works, then add the second, and we’ll take it from there…
I configured the monitor + TV.
I was thinking that the clone mode shall be enabled by default, that is, both the monitor and the TV shall work by default and show the same picture. As it appears, the second output is not enabled by default.
The card evidently has a primary output, to which it outputs before the OS is loaded and before the nvidia driver takes control. This was the DVI connector and it was not connected to the monitor - the monitor was connected to the D-SUB connector.
This is very correct and helpful:
There were some minor bugs in nvidia-settings, all overcomeable. Maybe there are corrected in opensuse 11.2.
The EDID information was obtained automatically, fully and correctly, from both display devices.
Thanks all for your help!
We need someone with nvidia hardware and multiple monitors to make up a how to with pix of the steps needed using “nvidia-settings”
I documented this best I could with the ATI proprietary driver , and using “xrandr” …
Laptop External Monitor Support - openSUSE Forums
If enough people would do this, we could take the information and either create an appropriate HOW-TO on our forum, or either updating an existing openSUSE wiki, or create a new wiki.
As it is now, the documentation does not appear to me to be very good describing how this can be done.
I might just give that a go, as soon as I have the time…
Speaking of accuracy, when I went to look at some old posts, I note I quoted ‘xrandr -q’ as the command I sent and not just ‘xrandr’. I could of sworn (and been wrong ??? ) that I only typed ‘xrandr’ and had this work so I need to check again myself. < sigh > … So it could be me being inaccurate here.
Anyway, to see what the GUI can look like, here is an old thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/laptop/423610-laptop-external-monitor-support.html#post2062875 Take a look at post #11 and #12. I note I obtain similar gui’s for both Intel and ATI hardware, but best I have read the same is not true for nVidia hardware.
… and as noted, I need to double check my work as I could be wrong about only ‘xrandr’ and maybe one needs to type ‘xrandr -q’ …
I no longer have an nvidia graphics card. Have the nvidia proprietary drivers started to support xrandr 1.2 yet? Speaking from memory, that was always the main problem when trying to sort out dual monitor issues - especially in my case as I rotate my second monitor for a portrait orientation. Easy to do now with my Intel video, even from the KDE desktop (no xrandr command line needed).
I’ve read that a reasonably successful means of configuring a second monitor when using nVidia hardware is to install the proprietary nVidia driver and also install the program ‘nvidia-settings’ (packaged by packman packagers: PackMan :: Package details for nvidia-settings ) and then run nvidia-settings. I have not tried that myself so I don’t have first hand experience there to offer.
I’ve observed this on old and newer Intel hardware with openSUSE-12.1 or earlier. But typically I needed to type ‘xrandr’ (or was it ‘xrandr -q’ ? ) to launch the GUI, and to just plug in the external monitor with no further action was not enough. Do you launch any particular application for tuning your Intel Video ? (as it needs to be configured as a clone, or to the top, bottom, right or left of the laptop’s nominal screen, and also the desired resolution typically needs to be defined).