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Dual Display Problem with ATI Card


HorseloverFat

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Hello, having a problem and wondering if anyone can help.

I'm trying to set up a computer with an MSI Radeon x300SE 128mb video card and XP Pro SP2. I have 2 Viewsonic CRT monitors connected (one 19" and one 17") and I'm trying to get dual display set up. Every other time I've set up a computer with a dual out video card it has just worked, but this time it is not.

Here's the details:

When both monitors are connected and turned on they both show the same thing, and they're also both dimmer than they are if only one is conencted, and they're a little "glitchy" when both are connected, but not when it's just one.

I see only one monitor listed in the Device Manager. I've tried changed the cables around, I've tried doing one at a time, and still I only see a single Default Monitor in s Device Manager. I can update the drivers for it to those for either of the Viewsonic displays, but that doesn't accomplish anything except getting Device Manager to say the proper name of one of the monitors - I still only see ONE.

In the Settings tab of the Display Properties window, I see two monitors, one of which is greyed out. I can't choose to extend my desktop to that monitor, when I click apply the checkmark just goes away and it remains greyed out. I read on another site that someone managed to solve this sort of problem by enabling the second display vide the ATI Catalyst Control Center, so I installed that and gave it a try but I can't extend my desktop from there either.

In Googling this problem I also found another forum where someone suggested turning down the resolution to make sure it's not a matter of the video card not being able to handle that many total pixels, so I tried that and no luck.

I think that pretty much sums up all the pertinent details. So, has anyone experienced something similar, or have any ideas about how to get both displays working?

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I think the problem you're facing is that your video card isn't a dual-head adaptor. In other words, the two output ports display the same basic signal.

Check your card details to see if it supports dual head display. Otherwise you'll have to move to another video card.

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Thanks for your reply.

Hmm, that thought had crossed my mind too, as a sort of "worst case scenario". I'm going to contact MSI tomorrow (their tech line isn't open on Sundays) and ask them about that.

The thing is though, this card was running 2 displays for ages in another computer, with the VGA out and the TV out. But I guess that doesn't say anything about whether or not the VGA and DVI outs can be used simultaneously... :( I guess I just assumed that if it was capable of doing those at once it'd be capable of doing the other two at once.

Anyway, here's hoping that MSI tells me that's NOT the case, and that it's just some little box I need to check off somewhere. Heh.

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See... DVI ports can be used to run analog (i.e. VGA) displays. My guess is that the traces on the board from the DVI port are simply mirrored to the VGA port. S-Video uses a completely different timing scheme, and would therefore need it's own display driver chip - allowing you to run an independent display on that port. Sadly, S-Video doesn't have the resolution capability to do anything decent aside from TV video.

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S-Video uses a completely different timing scheme, and would therefore need it's own display driver chip...

I like to add that most video now have that build in to the GPU. On older cards they used it.

When we look at the AMD site, we see in the specs that it has a dual VGA controller build in, so it should be working with 2 screens having different layout. It could be that MSI made there own BIOS that doesn’t support dual screens or that the DVI to VGA adaptor isn’t working for that card. Did you try the latest drivers from the MSI site? I remember that MSI sometimes does strange things with there drivers and BIOS.

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Called MSI just now, and you were right - it just doens't support dual displays, except cloned (and even then, like I said, the cloned dual display was dimmer and glitchy, so generally undesirable). But yeah, the card just doesn't allow me to extend my desktop over both.

Thanks for your help!

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