Is a dual monitor system possible?

English Hardware
1

I have an Intel Desktop Board DH55C featured with VGA, DVI-D and HDMI connectors. In addition, my system has an ASUS Radeon HD 4350 card. I’m currently using the Asus card to connect my monitor (through DVI).

I was wondering if I could connect a second monitor (through DVI) on the Intel desktop board.

However, Opensuse 11.4 doesn’t see the second monitor. In the bios I can select which card will be the primary, and if I choose the onboard card, Opensuse runs on the second monitor, but I’ve lost my main monitor.

I would like to know if it is feasible to enable both cards for a dual monitor system.

  • If not, should I use standard VGA to connect the second monitor on the same video card
  • Or, are there any video cards (supported by Opensuse) with 2 DVI connectors
  • If it is possible, how should I proceed?

Thanks for your help

Ivan

2

So it is hard to know all hardware setups and I normally use nVIDIA over ATI/AMD but I will suggest both monitors should connect to the same video card both using a DVI connection if at all possible. I have used this setup with nVIDIA and it works just fine.

Thank You,

3

I have an Intel Desktop Board DH55C featured with VGA, DVI-D and HDMI connectors. In addition, my system has an ASUS Radeon HD 4350 card. I’m currently using the Asus card to connect my monitor (through DVI).

I was wondering if I could connect a second monitor (through DVI) on the Intel desktop board.

It is possible to configure dual graphics cards (if both are enabled in BIOS), but it will usually require ‘hand configuration’ of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d files (or a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file). It is not a trivial exercise for new users. The suggestion by James to use a dual-headed graphics card is the easier option here.

However, if using 2 different cards, the general approach is to use

/sbin/lspci

to identify the bus ID for each card, then use that info in the xorg.conf device section (or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf for recent Xorg versions).

Two screen and monitor sections (or files) will also be needed.

Have a read of this answer for more info:

How can I get multiple video cards to work on linux? - Super User

4

Sometimes when you connect a graphics card it disables the onboard graphics.