starting X with no monitor attached

ricochetman · 03-31-10, 02:31 PM

I have a question, and I have searched everywhere and I can't find the answers. I have a setup where I need to run an X session with no physical monitor attached. The was great under the old drivers, 180.51, but the newest drivers, 195.36.15, X will not start unless a monitor is Physically plugged in. Is this a bug or a design "feature" ?

**AaronP** · 03-31-10, 03:18 PM

The driver features a "No scanout" mode for Quadro and Tesla cards. The driver will use it automatically for Tesla cards, but for Quadro you need to configure it by adding Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none" to your X configuration.

For GeForce GPUs, the driver requires an output. Recent drivers will fail to start if they detect no attached monitors because that's usually the result of a mistake. If you really want to force the X server to start even though no monitors are attached, you'll need to configure it to pretend one is attached anyway using the ConnectedMonitor option.

03-31-10, 02:31 PM	#1
ricochetman Registered User Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 1	starting X with no monitor attached I have a question, and I have searched everywhere and I can't find the answers. I have a setup where I need to run an X session with no physical monitor attached. The was great under the old drivers, 180.51, but the newest drivers, 195.36.15, X will not start unless a monitor is Physically plugged in. Is this a bug or a design "feature" ?

03-31-10, 03:18 PM	#2
AaronP NVIDIA Corporation Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 2,487	Re: starting X with no monitor attached The driver features a "No scanout" mode for Quadro and Tesla cards. The driver will use it automatically for Tesla cards, but for Quadro you need to configure it by adding Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none" to your X configuration. For GeForce GPUs, the driver requires an output. Recent drivers will fail to start if they detect no attached monitors because that's usually the result of a mistake. If you really want to force the X server to start even though no monitors are attached, you'll need to configure it to pretend one is attached anyway using the ConnectedMonitor option.