Widescreen Gaming Forum

Quick question,

Shouldn't I be able to connect 3 dissimilar monitors to a 5670 and run them in Extended Desktop?

Specifics: Talked work into letting me spend some money. Picked up a MSI 5670 from Fry's. The card has one DVI, HDMI & DP on it. I have 3 monitors on order (Dell P2310H), but they have not yet arrived. My Active Display Port adapter has arrived.

Currently, I have (2) Dell 2208WFP's and (1) Dell 2001FP on my desk. The 2208 are connected DVI>DVI and HDMI>DVI from the card. The 2001 is conencted DP>ActiveDP>DVI.

When attempting to enable the 2001, I am forced to disable one of the others. Should this be the case, or should I be able to run all three non-EyeFinity in Extended Desktop?

Thanks

you should be able to run them. Are you sure it's an Active adapter? What model of the adapter did you get?

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System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

Definately active. It's the Bizlink from Dell. The label on the USB is marked "F/W .034"

I'll take it home tonight and give it a test. It certainly is acting passive though, so I tried a different USB port on the PC, nothing. Need to dig up a active hub to test it on.

Hmmm, maybe I am DVI-D'ing myself in the foot. 18-pin DVI cable. Think I need a 24's right?

Yeah, works fine at home. Swapped it out while in Standby mode, no issues.

Looks like either a DVI-D or USB issue at work. Easy enough to fix. :)

Ouch, switched to DVI-D cables, still no love. Wants me to disable a display to enable the 'third'. Going to try the powered USB I suppose, but I do not believe that will resolve it. This host is an HP xw6400 workstation and I can't imagine it has 'weak' usb ports.

Not much left in the puzzle though...

initially i thought it was a wonky adapter, maybe it's the card, or the cards bios. But this is weird. These adapters seem to be hit or miss.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

Agree it's a head-scratcher. I am leaning towards the card also. This card does not require supplemental power, which seems weird, although, I am guessing that they did actually test it with 3-monitors.

The adapter I ended up bringing back to work is my Accell from home, so the combination of this card/host/adapter being the problem has been voted off the island.

Boring day, I'll end up taking this card back (MSI R5670 PMD1G, $129) and grabbing the Radeon 5750 ($169) and see what happens.

The 5750 requires power and has 2xDVI, DP, HDMI like the 5870's.

/grasping at straws

Sho 'nough. Just got back with the 5750. Popped it in, DVI>DVI, HDMI>DVI, DP>ActiveDP>DVI, works 100% as it should. Extended desktop across all 3 no problem and could create an EF group if I wanted two of them to step down and look funky (pass).

My guess is that the previous card would have functioned with a native DP monitor and that others are most likely experiencing this head scratcher which is (most likely) a simple incompatibility with the lower end cards and the above connection configuration.

Anyway, happy now and will be happier when my monitors arrive next week. Going to jump for joy once work finally has a damn Win7 VPN client and I can remote desktop to my work PC at 5760x1080 native on both sides.

Thanks for the help...