Fix NVIDIA Dual Screens – Second Monitor Blank Issue

14.10driversmultiple-monitorsnvidianvidia-settings

Recently installed a clean version of Ubuntu 14.10 on my system. Previous to that, I'd been running Windows 7 with no problems.

My system has two screens, one of which is a LG Electronics 24EN43 which is hooked up to a GeForce GTX 650 via HDMI. This is the default screen.
The second screen is a DELL 2009W connected to a GeForce 210 via VGA. My problem is that screen 2 does not seem to be behaving properly.

  • I can move my cursor right to the second screen, and my cursor becomes a black X with a white border. I can then move my cursor back left onto the first screen.
  • I cannot move any windows to the second screen, and I cannot open any programs or terminals on the second screen.
  • The second screen has a black background.

I am currently using the NVIDA X Server Settings utility, and under the 'Additional Drivers' section of Software & Updates, I am using the NVIDIA binary driver – version 331.38 from nvidia331

Here is a haste-bin of my configuration file for the XServers.
http://hastebin.com/feharojubu.cmake

Here's some other things I have noticed:

  • If under the Additional Drivers, I use 'X.Org X server – Nouveau display driver from xserver-xorg-video-noveau (open source). Then the second screen does work, it has Unity, background, and works like it should.
  • However, the cursor on screen 1 has an annoying flicker, the computer will randomly freeze and crash, and it is really bad at watching videos (you see bars going down the video as it slowly refreshes at 0.5 frames per second)

If any additional information is required, I am happy to provide it.
Many thanks

Best Answer

Depending on how technical you are (If not, do not read any further) there might be a solution to your problems.

As you're running 14.10 (bleeding edge), I would add the xorg-edgers PPA to your system. Read https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa first as you need to know that these are bleeding-edge drivers.

That being said, the xorg-edgers release drivers on a regular basis and if the very last one doesn't do what you need, you can always roll back... I'm running 346.16 and that got rid of most of my problems...

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