Laptop screen / VGA output problem at 8.04

Hello Marc.

I used to have the exact same video card on my old laptop, and used the proprietary drivers for nVidia. Unfortunately, these drivers had some weak points, and switching output was one of them. The 440 Go video card was obsolete, and the driver support was discontinued (or: started moving at a very very slow pace), so nVidia never got to actually making this work.

Long story short: the nVidia driver for your card (the nvidia's "96xx" driver line, if I recall correctly) has never supported output display switching at runtime. There should be a README file in the driver bundle which mentions this very clearly.

The open-sourced drivers can not be made to support this, because nVidia doesn't reveal the specs so that someone could make the drivers properly.

You should complain to nVidia about this problem, I don't think that Ubuntu or any other Linux folk can help.

HTH.

NB: it has been a while that I got a new computer with a new video card, so don't know if this problem has been solved in the meantime. If I had to bet, I'd bet that it hasn't been.

Nice that its not supported for Linux.
But what can I do to get it working the way I want.
I know that if I take out [b]Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"[/b] from xorg.conf the VGA output is powered.
That means changing this file every time I want to change the screen.

I used a workaround that allowed me to use the VGA and the laptop screen interchangeably (thus: not at the same time).

I made two X configuration files (on my machine the file name is: /etc/X11/xorg.conf), one with and one without UseDisplayDevice option. I named them /etc/X11/xorg.conf.vga and /etc/X11/xorg.conf.laptop respectivelly.

When I wanted to use VGA output for the beamer, I copied the file without the UseDisplayDevice to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restarted the system. If I wanted back, I copied the other file.

This is far from a flexible solution, since if you copy wrong file at the wrong moment, you are left without output. Also the output must be tailor-made to the beamer. If you set the VGA resolution too high, some beamers get confused, etc, so this is risky practice if you often take your laptop somewhere to give a presentation. If someone knows better, I will welcome the improvement.

As said before, the only ones who can give a real answer, and not just a workaround, are the people from nVidia.

initially for seven months my dell inspiron 10v auomatically got connected to external monitor through vga port. recently it stopped. cable and monitor checked with other lap top and found working. Can anybody tell me wat the problem could be and how to get it resolved.

Jaggupalli,
You don't provide any information about your hardware, what platform/version of OS and what you did just before it stopped sending the signal to the VGA-port. Any upgrade/update1 of any kind?
I'm no expert and I was helped by a good friend and the previous owner of the laptop.
But if you read the thread thoroughly you'll find its the xorg.conf where the output definition is located.
Depending on the videocard you have to search for the solution.

@Jaggupalli please make a new fresh question from here about your issue: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

Thank you