I got my two QNIX QX2710 LED Evolution II SE Matte 27" 2560x1440 Samsung PLS WQHD monitors and incorporated them into my existing dual Acer X222W 22" 1680x1050 setup. I put the two QNIXes in the middle, and put the Acers on the left and right edges. All four are in “portrait” orientation, because I primarily code on my computer. A single Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC 2GB GDDR5 2DVI/2HDMI card powers all four monitors; the QNIXes use the DVI ports, while the Acers use the HDMI ports via two HDMI-to-DVI(female) adapters. I bought this card because of the simplicity of the four ports — just DVI and HDMI.
As for the stands, I just bought another dual monitor stand and put it next to my existing dual monitor stand; each stand holds a QNIX and an Acer on each arm. The fact that the stands are subject to differently weighted monitors (27" monitor on one arm and a 22" on another) does not really affect them negatively. The desk in the image below is 140mm wide, in case you want to have a sense of how tight two dual-monitor stands would fit on your own desk.
Using four monitors sounds difficult, but it’s a breeze with Xinerama
and Xmonad. The hardest part was figuring out the correct xorg.conf
configuration file. It was difficult because the QNIX monitors, being
cheap, do not work out of the box, because the latest Nvidia driver
(version 337.12) does not detect the correct resolution. What’s worse,
the QNIXes do not support anything other than their native 2560x1440
resolution, so you’ll get blank screens if you try to just use these
monitors without tweaking some xorg.conf settings. I actually ended up
googling to find the correct Modeline value for xorg.conf for my
QNIX, at 96hz refresh rate.1 You could try using the cvt program
included with xorg-server, but when I tried it out on my own it
generated different numbers and my QNIXes couldn’t handle those numbers.
Here is my xorg.conf:
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 337.12 (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-11) Fri Apr 4 15:17:43 PDT 2014
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Qnix1" 2490 0
Screen 1 "Acer1" 3930 300
Screen 2 "Acer2" 0 300
Screen 3 "Qnix2" 1050 0
Option "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "QNIX"
ModelName "QX2710"
DisplaySize 597 336
HorizSync 88.8 - 160.0
VertRefresh 59.5 - 120.0
ModeLine "2560x1440" 241.50 2560 2608 2640 2720 1440 1443 1448 1481 +hsync -vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_60" 312.25 2560 2752 3024 3488 1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_75" 397.25 2560 2760 3040 3520 1440 1443 1448 1506 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_85" 454.75 2560 2768 3048 3536 1440 1443 1448 1514 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_96" 400.00 2560 2608 2640 2744 1440 1443 1448 1512 +hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Acer X222W"
HorizSync 31.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
# Generated via "cvt 1680 1050" with the Acer monitor plugged in; `cvt` is
# part of xorg-server 1.15.1-1 package on Arch Linux
ModeLine "1680x1050_60.00" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor2"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Acer X222W"
HorizSync 31.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
ModeLine "1680x1050_60.00" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor3"
VendorName "QNIX"
ModelName "QX2710"
DisplaySize 597 336
HorizSync 88.8 - 160.0
VertRefresh 59.5 - 120.0
ModeLine "2560x1440" 241.50 2560 2608 2640 2720 1440 1443 1448 1481 +hsync -vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_60" 312.25 2560 2752 3024 3488 1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_75" 397.25 2560 2760 3040 3520 1440 1443 1448 1506 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_85" 454.75 2560 2768 3048 3536 1440 1443 1448 1514 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine "2560x1440_96" 400.00 2560 2608 2640 2744 1440 1443 1448 1512 +hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "DVI-port-top"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GTX 750 Ti"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 0
Option "UseEdidDpi" "False"
Option "DPI" "108 x 108"
Option "NoLogo" "1"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "HDMI-port-right"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GTX 750 Ti"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "False"
Option "DPI" "90 x 90"
Option "NoLogo" "1"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "HDMI-port-left"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GTX 750 Ti"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "False"
Option "DPI" "90 x 90"
Option "NoLogo" "1"
Screen 2
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "DVI-port-bottom"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GTX 750 Ti"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "False"
Option "DPI" "108 x 108"
Option "NoLogo" "1"
Screen 3
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Qnix1"
Device "DVI-port-top"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "False"
Option "UseEDIDDPI" "False"
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
Option "ModeValidation" "AllowNonEdidModes, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoHorizSyncCheck, NoMaxSizeCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoEDIDModes"
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
Option "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: 2560x1440_96 +0+0 {rotation=left}"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Acer1"
Device "HDMI-port-right"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "False"
Option "UseEDIDDPI" "False"
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
Option "ModeValidation" "AllowNonEdidModes, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoHorizSyncCheck, NoMaxSizeCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoEDIDModes"
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
Option "metamodes" "HDMI-0: 1680x1050_60.00 +0+0 {rotation=right}"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Acer2"
Device "HDMI-port-left"
Monitor "Monitor2"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "False"
Option "UseEDIDDPI" "False"
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
Option "ModeValidation" "AllowNonEdidModes, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoHorizSyncCheck, NoMaxSizeCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoEDIDModes"
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
Option "metamodes" "HDMI-1: 1680x1050_60.00 +0+0 {rotation=left}"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Qnix2"
Device "DVI-port-bottom"
Monitor "Monitor3"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "False"
Option "UseEDIDDPI" "False"
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
Option "ModeValidation" "AllowNonEdidModes, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoHorizSyncCheck, NoMaxSizeCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoEDIDModes"
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
Option "metamodes" "DVI-D-0: 2560x1440_96 +0+0 {rotation=left}"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection quad-monitor-portrait.xorg.conf [GitHub] [Download]
I tried using the higher refresh rate modelines, but they resulted in my monitors going crazy (extreme artifacting, lines shrieking irregularly with different colors, etc.).↩︎
