Dual GPU / Dual Monitor Problem

Hyprland version
PASTE YOUR HYPRLAND VERSION HERE (hyprctl version), BETWEEN THE BACKTICKS. DO NOT REMOVE ANY FORMATTING.

Hi

I installed linux mint, with Cinnamon, a while ago and I had this issue where I couldn’t have both my monitors plugged into my 980ti at the same time. One monitor (main) was plugged into the hdmi port, and the other monitor (secondary) was plugged into the DVI port (its an old monitor). The problem is that each one works perfectly fine, but the second I try to put both in, it defaults to the hdmi, as if the dvi is ignored. My monitor for the DVI just keeps saying “no signal”, but when I turn off the hdmi monitor, all of a sudden the dvi monitor works. And every so often I see flashes of the wallpaper on my DVI monitor. I tried fixing it but I got frustrated and moved on just using one monitor.

Recently I installed ARCH LINUX minimal, and installed hyperland. But an important point is, I got a 750ti in my pc now as well, and I put the DVI monitor on the 750ti.

For a brief moment my monitors were both working with hyperland. GREAT!

EXCEPT the next morning I turn on my computer and I got the exact same problem. I’ve tried asking all the damn LLM models, and it just goes in circles, nothing gets resolved. Tried googling, still not much luck. I know nvidia is shit for linux in general, but its what I got.

Here is some context:

- hyprland monitors shows that both monitors are being picked up by my system (Acer AIO LCD + Toshiba LCD-Monitor)

- nvidia-smi shows both gpus are detected and running

- Nvidia driver version is 580.82.09

- I’ve tried various hyprland configs, and so far it doesn’t seem like its doing anything. the underlying problem seems to not care about hyprland’s config.

So this is my problem, and I’m wondering if there’s anyone who knows what’s going on here, or at least can point me in the right direction, because if chat gpt or claude tells me one more time to check if the cables have a bad connection I’m gonna throw my computer into the pool.

This sounds more likely a driver problem than a Hyprland problem, though I’m not 100% certain on that. I’m not well versed in which drivers are best for what GPUs but I never have needed to worry about it on my system as I use CachyOS which has the chwd tool on it that handles selecting the best driver for my GPU, the tool works with AMD, Nvidia and Intel GPUs.

The Arch Wiki will likely have good recommendations on making sure your driver stack is set up correctly but if you want the easy way out, just use CachyOS. It’s arch based, has a lovely graphical installer and there’s even a Hyprland desktop preset you can pick to install! You’ll be able to do everything you can do on arch the way you normally do it, there are some quality of life tools in CachyOS that I prefer to use but they are not required by any means. It also performs better on older hardware.

If you want a minimal installation like you did with your current Arch system you can also choose not to install a DE at all and there is a panel in the graphical installer that will let you uncheck any default packages it says it will install.

If you do go the CachyOS route, after install just pop open a terminal and run sudo chwd -a -f and let the command do it’s thing, then reboot once it’s done.

Hello, if you are experiencing a DVI output problem, this problem is not related to Hyprland, it is related to the DVI display output. By using artificial intelligence, you may not get more than what you would get from general perception and support. That’s why artificial intelligence enters the loop and produces the same result because the data set has not been trained very well at its full capacity in some aspects. Anyway, if you’re using Wayland with DVI output, I’m sure the drivers are already installed with dotfiles, or you installed them yourself. You can also set the Grub display parameters or the Grub display parameters in Grub.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“… nvidia-drm.modeset=1”

If you add this setting, the DRM graphics API will be affected by Nvidia. If you’re using EGL, I recommend switching to GBM. Nvidia should be installed. If GBM general buffer management isn’t installed, check with pacman -Qs gbm.
Hyprland mostly uses GBM, so I recommend installing CUDA if you’re using applications that use the Nvidia API.

GBM_BACKEND=nvidia-drm
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia

If you set these settings, Nvidia DVI display output will work without any problems.