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I would like to spread my desktop across 3 monitors, having been using only 2 until now against my GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2. I have read mixed accounts of whether that is possible or not, some of them quite old. When I plug the third monitor in, it immediately becomes visible in the System Settings -> displays window, but trying to activate it from there results in two windows of mostly awkward error messages - it never activates.

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Would be nice managing to configure this, either by a driver upgrade or whatever, rather than adding a another card. Any advice? should I check my driver version?

While these error messages describe many display modes, each my displays trivially works with this computer when it is part of a two monitor ensemble, so there is no problem with the card matching the right display mode for any given monitor of the three.

BTW Nvidia product pages have been very dubious about this kind of support last I looked a while back, maybe you may have greater clarity reading them.

Here's some driver version information,

vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
modalias : pci:v000010DEd00000F02sv00001462sd00008A9Fbc03sc00i00
driver   : nvidia-346-updates - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-340-updates - distro non-free
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
driver   : nvidia-346 - distro non-free recommended
driver   : nvidia-340 - distro non-free

from running sudo ubuntu-drivers devices. Not sure how that particular output really makes sense; which driver is being used is unclear from it.

And here's another useful output correctly depicting the max resolution of each of the monitors, while they are all connected, but only two of them "active", whereas it is the hopeful goal to get all three active and spreading the desktop among them.

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3286 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 connected 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1680x1050      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     59.9  
VGA-0 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 230mm
   1366x768       59.8*+
   1280x720       60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     59.9  
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
   1920x1080      60.0 +   59.9     50.0  
   1280x720       59.9  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3  
   720x480        59.9  
   640x480        59.9
matanox
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  • Have you made sure that your GPU is set as primary in BIOS instead of the integrated graphics? – jbrock Oct 06 '15 at 14:20
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    You may also want to try using arandr to configure. If that works, you can save the settings as a script to run at login. (Be sure though to 'sleep 5' before running this login script.) I know you don't want this solution, but I have had success with ATI Radeon and three monitors with open source drivers. I have two computers with three monitor setups, one with the Radeon 5450 card and the other with the Radeon R5 220. – jbrock Oct 06 '15 at 14:29
  • The BIOS is relatively new, and has no integrated graphics :) Looks like arandr fails cryptically when I try activating the 3rd monitor. So it feels a little like the graphics card doesn't support three after all. It says "cannot find crtc for output VGA-0", when I try to activate the 3rd monitor, which is actually connected to the HDMI port. Looks like the graphics card really gets confused with three. – matanox Oct 06 '15 at 18:56
  • You could test the proprietary driver on a live CD to see if it works. However, I did not like the proprietary experience with my Radeon cards. It broke a few things such as compositing. It may be different though with Nvidia. http://askubuntu.com/questions/21144/how-do-i-get-three-monitors-working-with-nvidia – jbrock Oct 06 '15 at 23:03
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    Personally, if you can't get it to work, I would buy a Radeon card and sell the current one online, maybe on Amazon. I don't do any gaming. My cards are under $40 and work perfectly fine on three monitors. Just a thought though. – jbrock Oct 06 '15 at 23:10
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    Yes, sometimes the HDMI to VGA adapters don't work too well because it is converting digital (HDMI) to analog (VGA). – jbrock Oct 07 '15 at 00:01
  • Seems that when I disactivate one of the existing monitors, the HDMI to VGA adapter works well, as the monitor works very well. Probably the card just can't support three concurrent monitors. I should follow your advice on getting a new card. – matanox Oct 07 '15 at 07:39

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