Arrggh: going crazy trying to get three monitors from HD5750

They make noise, too.

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potsy
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Arrggh: going crazy trying to get three monitors from HD5750

Post by potsy » Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:19 am

Hi there all,

I would like to run a projector and two monitors from my PC. Would like to do it from one card because it would be quieter and use less power. And I have only 1 PCIe slot anyway. After much research, I bought a powercolor passive HD5750 and a monitor with a display port input (because the manual for the 5750 says if running three displays one must be a display port - something to do with clocks. Hmmm).

But blow me down, I can't get it to work. ATI's catalyst control centre will let me enable two monitors, but the third remains greyed out and can't be enabled.

My googling tells me I need "eyefinity" software, but I can't find that, either online or on the install disc that came with the card.

There's nothing unusual about my set up, just XP with the system in my sig.

I can't find anything useful on the AMD website and their support page keeps giving me a "server busy" page. The manual says I'll need to register the card before I get support, but the registration page doesn't exist anymore!

I would really like to make this nice passive card work for me but after hours of fiddling and searching I just can't. Can anyone help?

Thanks
Potsy

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:29 am

eyefinity is a buzzword. The CCC contains it.

If you are new to ATI then let me explain CCC.

There is a "driver" which is the software that lets windows speak to your video card and "CCC" which is a fancy control panel which lets you change settings on the video card.

The CCC contains all the wizards that automate more advanced tasks. It can make things possible that aren't possible with the driver alone but it can also be buggy and slow down the PC slightly. This is why you generally don't want to use the version that came with the card. Newer versions fix issues seen in older versions.

You don't say what version of windows you have but assuming 32bit windows 7 you want "Catalyst Software Suite (32 bit) English Only" version 10.8 filename (10-8_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_enu.exe)

Note: the versions for ATI drivers are now in year.month form not majorversion.minor version so 10.11 is newer than 10.9 by two months.

Once you have the latest Driver/CCC installed watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYorUpN4PQo and see if you learn anything from it.

nomoon
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Post by nomoon » Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:51 am

Eyefinity isn't supported in XP, though, it's not necessarily needed for 3 monitors. However, the support for the the third port is extremely shoddy for XP. I also have the powercolor passive HD5750 and I tinkered with 3 monitors for a while and eventually gave up and added another card to the second slot. However, I didn't have a displayport monitor, and was trying to add the third monitor to the displayport (DP) using a DP-VGA adapter. I was actually able to get it to work a couple of times, but it was extremely quirky.

In my case, it seemed that the CCC system would sometimes gets stuck, and needed to be reset by unplugging, rebooting, and replugging the monitors back into the card.

Do all of your monitors have the same resolution? If not, then try making sure that your largest monitor is the primary monitor. Also, lower the resolution of the primary monitor to a resolution that is compatible with the other monitor before attempting to add the second monitor. Catalyst automatically sets the resolution of the newly added monitor to the same resolution as the primary. The link error occurs if the newly added monitor is incompatible with that resolution.


This thread at hardforum might be helpful.

potsy
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Post by potsy » Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:26 am

Thank you both for your replies. Looks like I didn't do my research thoroughly enough, but I feel like I've been dudded by the sales talk. The amd website says "comprehensive operating system support that includes Windows 7, Vista and Linux" and I guess I glossed over it thinking "comprehensive" might mean lots of systems. It should, of course, read "OS support limited to just two, Win7 and Vista, with Linux planned for the future," which, to be fair, is what the FAQ that I didn't read says.

Have fiddled with the screen resolutions and swapping which is the primary monitor, but no luck.

I've read a few more forums with people complaining they've learned the hard way that XP isn't supported. Me too now!

I don't want to upgrade to Win 7, because in Australia it costs $200 (double what people in the States pay) and the necessary upgrades to my other software would cost more than that again. So I'd be looking at the GPU, a monitor, about $500 in software - about $1000 just so I can get three outputs. Ouch!

So I think I'll give up too. I'll probably sell the 5750 and buy an active box to just split one signal to feed my projector. Much simpler!

Potsy.

nomoon
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Post by nomoon » Wed Sep 15, 2010 6:32 am

I ended up buying another cheap 43xx series card for $21 (US) so that I could run four monitors. I now only use 3 monitors now that I have larger monitors. The two card system works well, so I haven't tinkered with trying to get the three to work with the single 5750 card.

To be clear: I did eventually get three monitors to work with the 5750. I spent lots of time booting and rebooting, and completely gave up once. It quit working once I added the second card, and I couldn't get it to work again after I removed the second card.

I understand that your motherboard only has one PCI-e slot. Would it be cost effective to upgrade your MB to one that has a second slot and buy a cheap 43xx series card? Are there any cheap MB that are compatible with your CPU?

Are you getting the “Displayport Link Failure,â€

shleepy
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Post by shleepy » Wed Sep 15, 2010 9:40 am

You could also try finding an extra PCI (not Express) video card to use, solely for running the third monitor, if you have an extra slot. They're still out there and shouldn't be overly expensive.

alecmg
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Post by alecmg » Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:04 am

Or get Windows 7 for same price

KayDat
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Post by KayDat » Thu Sep 16, 2010 7:46 am

I don't suppose you have on board graphics? I was running trimon back with my old X1800/mobo combo, though theoretically I could have gone quad. The main attraction with Eyefinity is SLS--Single Large Surface--which makes the computer think that it's outputting to one large monitor. Useful only really for games. I prefer my monitors on separate outputs.

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