Multiple PC Monitor Help Please

[The Vinyl Adventure]

i know we got some computer wizzez round these parts so hopefully someone will be able to help... i have had a look on some computer forums but i cant make any sense of them...

i have a nvidia 9500gt (in pci express slot) and am running 2 x 22" monitors off of it, one via dvi, one via vga.
i found an old 15" lg in cash converters and got them down to £20 (its bloody good picture too)..
slotted in an old nvidia 6200 (into pci slot) - plugged in the lg via vga... nothing

im running windows 7, it tried to install the drivers automatically and decided to try and use the standard display adapter drivers, despite the nvida 6200 being supported by the 9500 driver...
it then told me it wasnt working and said my 6200 doesnt support dx9 (aparently a minimum requirement for windows 7).. which i know it does!

i even got the monitor working by removing my 9500gt card.... but then i guess that was because it was just useing the standard display adapter drivers whilst the 9500 wernt in use

i am lead to belive windows 7 will only allow the use of one display driver... which shouldnt be a problem since both cards are supported by the 9500 drivers... but i cant for the life of me get it to run the same drivers for both displays....

anyone got the first clue how to fix this problem

[MartinT]

I'm pretty sure W7 will want to run a separate driver for each graphics card, despite it being the same chipset. It does for printers too. Therefore you may not be able to run both graphics card simultaneously (I've only ever run two monitors from a single card as you do).

[HighFidelityGuy]

I've run into issues trying to run three monitors on Win 7 on two occasions.
One PC is running an Nvidia 7900 with 2x 20" monitors and a 6200 with another 20" monitor. All three kind of work most of the time. I didn't have to install extra drivers or anything. I just installed the 6200, switched on and it worked. However, the monitor on the 6200 does odd things. Sometimes the background disappears and just goes black and sometimes the image is offset off the side of the monitor. It's all a bit odd and unreliable.

On a 2nd machine I couldn't even get Win7 to install properly with two Nvidia Quadro FX 570's installed. Somethimes it would install but then screw up on first boot, other times it would just hang suring install. The same thing happened if I installed Win7 with one card and then added a 2nd later. This was using a full release version of Win7 and the latest drivers from Nvidia. I even faffed around with BIOS updates amd tried re-burning the CD from a freshly downloaded MSDN ISO image.

I never got either working properly but the first PC now runs Ubuntu Linux with 3 monitors without any issues, so I think there's definitely something wrong with dual graphics card support in Win7.

[HighFidelityGuy]

I'm pretty sure W7 will want to run a separate driver for each graphics card, despite it being the same chipset. It does for printers too. Therefore you may not be able to run both graphics card simultaneously (I've only ever run two monitors from a single card as you do).

I guess it could be worth trying to install the same drivers again after the 2nd card is installed but I wouldn't have thought this should be necessary, especially as Nvidia use a unified driver architecture that allows one driver install to be compatible with multiple card models. The second PC I mentioned that really didn't like the setup had been working with dual graphics cards in Vista without issues and I'm sure that didn't require any special treatment when it comes to drivers. :hmm: Very odd.

[Themis]

I've no idea, sorry.
If I were you, I would try using only one driver for both cards, though.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

yeah, its all a pain in the ass


I've no idea, sorry.
If I were you, I would try using only one driver for both cards, though.

how do i make it do that?

[Themis]

Sorry hamish, I'm far from home and I've no win7 PC here, so I can't give you a step-by-step indication.
Can't you try and change driver in the graphics card properties box, or something like that ?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

No, doesn't seem, because the standard display adapter thing doesn't initialize there is, as far as windows is concerned, only 2 monitors are plugged in

[Primalsea]

Aren't Graphics cards a bit like sound cards - you cant really run 2 at once? I think you might need to get a card designed to run 2 monitors. I have to see my friend tomorrow, he's a IT engineer for the local council. I'm sure he'll know so I will ask him.