Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 84357
Multihead (Nvidia TNT2 + voodoo 3) Fails To Start
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:51:15 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030120 Description of problem: When attempting to start a multihead X session (with xinerama or not), neither monitor comes to life and any attempts to quit X fail. No logs are produced in /var/log for the failed session. When running in single screen mode (using AGP as the device) X works fine. Also, if I take out the AGP card and use only the PCI (voodoo) card, that works in single device mode, too. This hardware configuration w/ xinerama worked great w/ Redhat 7.3 and Mandrake 9. Because of this, I believe the hardware is fine. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Place TNT2 into AGP. 2. Place 3dfx voodoo 3 into PCI slot. 3. Use included XF86Config file. Actual Results: Both monitors blank out, no HD activity. Only hard reset will work at this point. Expected Results: X to start, and for gnome (in my case) to start as well. Additional info: When I attempt to run X -configure, that also shows the same behavior. The screens blank out and that's it until reboot. Also, when I run X -scanpci, nothing comes back. Not sure this is a bug or misconfiguration. I followed all Xinerama HOWTOs, and I believe I did the same exact things that I did when I got this to work on 7.3 and mandrake 9.0. I wish I kept those configuration files.
Created attachment 90099 [details] PCI list from /proc/pci My current hardware setup, from /proc/pci.
Created attachment 90100 [details] XF86Config my XF86Config, from /etc/X11. Notice how I actually have a total of three devices, but am only attempting to get 2 to work right now.
I wanted to add, I did read through bugzilla re: this issue. I saw a few posts about how DRI doesn't work w/ 16b color. That's fine, I don't want DRI anyway, so I attempted to disable it (see attached XF86Config file).
Using the links to create an attachment, could you please post your log file? (/var/log/XFree86.0.log)
Hello and thanks for the quick response, I'm 99% sure that no log message is created in /var/log when I try to run multihead. I believe this to be the case because I check those logs after the freezes, and the lines "ServerLayout" (always near top) never prints the ServerLayout when I try to run multihead. To be double sure, I'll delete all X logs and try multihead to see what is generated. I'll do this Monday. If that doesn't work, is there a way to capture what is printed to stdout/stderr when X runs? Because the system freezes, I can't ever see that text. Maybe a redirect of the output to a file? thanks!
What you read was incorrect. DRI works fine at 16bit depth. In fact, on Voodoo 3 hardware, the card itself _only_ supports 3D at 16bit depth, but this is not a DRI limitation, it's a hardware limitation. DRI does not work in Xinerama configurations with any hardware, again, not a bug, just an unimplemented feature. Note that if you are using a 3Dfx card in a dualhead setup, your BIOS _must_ have the 3Dfx card configured to be the primary vga device, or XFree86 will be unable to initialize the BIOS on the card itself. Please remove the Voodoo II from the machine entirely to ensure it is not causing additional problems. XFree86 outputs a log file into /var/log/XFree86.0.log, which should be there. Please attach it. You don't need to output redirect the X server's startup messages, as they are logged to the log file. When your system reboots back into text mode, that is when you can snag the log file. Make sure DRI is disabled while using xinerama. TIA
Created attachment 90187 [details] X log from multihead attempt Log from when I tried xinerama w/ multihead. As usual, screen blanks, no HD activity, and I had to force reset the box.
Created attachment 90188 [details] The config used when I generated the X log. Latest attempt at configuring X for xinerama. Notice how DRI is turned off.
As per your instructions, I turned the Voodoo 3 to be the primary Video device on the system. I am now writing this from the voodoo. I also disabled DRI (check the latest XF86Config I attached). I'm sure the hardware is not the problem. These same cards in their same spots were working as a Xinerama setup less than a week ago under Mandrake 9.
I upgraded from RH 8.0 to Phoebe and I get same problem with Radeon + Voodoo3 multihead configuration. With single screen layout (radeon or voodoo3) works fine.
It looks like the Nvidia nv driver is having problems perhaps. Please update to the latest release of X in rawhide, and if the problem persists, please report it to xfree86@xfree86.org bug report address and mailing list. Nvidia hardware documentation is not made publically available even under NDA from Nvidia, so the open source community relies on Nvidia updating the nv driver themselves and providing bug fixes.
I wanted to rule out the nVidia, too. I took out the card, so now I only have two voodoo 3 cards. I then double checked my XF86Config, and I took out glx, dbe, and dri. Funny thing is, when I startx w/ this hw config, everything blanks out /and/ no log is created in /var/log. Is there a XF86Config that is known to work w/ 2 voodoo3's? If so, I'll try that to rule out a bad XF86Config. I can also post the recently tried XF86Config to this bug. Having said that, I'll upgrade X server to rawhide to see what happens. Thanks!
OK, no go. I tried a multihead w/ just two voodoo 3's. No nVidia card is installed in the box. I'll include the XF86Config. I also updated all the X rpms from rawhide. No log is created in /var/log, which is especially frustrating. Also, the second monitor does get initialized and I see the text voodoo boot up of the card itself, but this only happens for the second monitor. The first/main monitor does not initialize. As an aside, the fonts look wonderful in pheobe!
Created attachment 90381 [details] XF86Config for 2 voodoo3 w/ NO nVidia Yet another attempt to get multihead to work. This time w/ only two voodoo 3's installed in box. Same result: blank screens and no log file produced.
If using 3Dfx hardware in a dualhead setup, the 3Dfx hardware *must* be set to the primary video device in your CMOS. This restriction precludes using 2 3Dfx cards in a multihead configuration because it is impossible to have 2 separate cards both be "primary". After removing one of the 3Dfx cards, and using a single 3Dfx card as primary, with the Nvidia card as secondary, does dualhead work?
I'm a bit confused about your last statement. Are you saying it is impossible to have a multihead setup w/ 2 3Dfx cards? Remember, in my latest attempt at multihead, I took out the nVidia card. Only the two identical 3Dfx cards remain. In my BIOS, I have changed the video setup from AGP to PCI. Under Mandrake 9, I did have this setup working: nVidia as primary, voodoo 3, and then a voodoo 3. That was three cards in total, with the nVidia AGP card being primary. That all worked under multihead. In the morning I will double check the BIOS and CMOS to see if there is any other bits I can twiddle. In the meantime, can you elaborate on your last statement? The only scenario right now I'm attempting is 2 3Dfx cards. I'll worry about the nVidia card later (unless you believe that the /only/ way to get multi head is for voodoo 3 as primary and nVidia as secondary). Scenarios that have failed include: - nVidia as primary - voodoo 3 as secondary - voodoo 3 as third - nVidia as primary - voodoo 3 as secondary - voodoo 3 as primary - nVidia as secondary - voodoo 3 as primary - voodoo 3 as secondary
Please upgrade to Fedora Core 2 or later, and if this issue turns out to still be reproduceable, please file a bug report in the X.Org bugzilla located at http://bugs.freedesktop.org in the "xorg" component. Once you've filed your bug report to X.Org, if you paste the new bug URL here, Red Hat will continue to track the issue in the centralized X.Org bug tracker, and will review any bug fixes that become available for consideration in future updates.