I've just bought a second monitor for my PC which happens to be a pivot monitor. I've already read lots of forums related to my problem but haven't come across a solution - I have the same symptoms as dozens of posts but no matter whatever I try it just doesn't work.

I've already changed the xorg.conf file and added in the device section just under Driver "nvidia" the following for my second monitor:

Option "RandRRotation" "on"

When I save and reboot I try to rotate my screen with the nvidia X server settings by choosing the second monitor and clicking either "left" or "right" for the rotation. It immediately exits the nvidia settings window and does nothing.

I tried within the terminal by typing:

xrandr -o right

I get the following error:

X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
Major opcode of failed request: 154 (RANDR)
Minor opcode of failed request: 2 (RRSetScreenConfig)
Serial number of failed request: 14
Current serial number in output stream: 14

I actually manage to rotate it with Option "Rotate" "CCW" instead of "RandRRotation". The problem with this solution is that you get the second monitor in the right position, but any window you open on that screen is practically unchangeable. You can't change the size nor move it, making it useless for reading PDFs, which is the main reason why I bought this second screen to help me write my thesis.

Any help is really appreciated.

sudo lshw -c video
hiram@hiram-linux:~$ sudo lshw -c video
*-display 
description: VGA compatible controller
product: nVidia Corporation
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: a1
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:f8000000-f9ffffff memory:d8000000-dfffffff memory:d4000000-d7ffffff ioport:dc00(size=12 memory:fbd80000-fbdfffff