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Adding a Second Video Card to a Studio XPS 9100
I just received my new Studio 9100 with a ATI Radeon HD5670 1GB video card. The documentation on the card says that it has three independent display controllers and will Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays. I also purchased 3 Dell ST2310 monitors that have the same inputs connections as the ATI Radeon HD5670 1GB video card output connections. When I hocked up the monitors only 2 will display video. I have tested and all 3 monitors work. When all 3 monitors are connected to the computer, the monitors with the HDMI and DVI connections will display. The VGA output will only work when one of the other connections are disconnected. I am not using this computer for playing games but to do stock trading. I need to be able to have different charts running on the different monitors. In a previous post I found out that the only way that the ATI Radeon HD5670 video card will run 3 monitors is if one of the monitors has a display port connection. So since I already have the monitors and they do not have a display port connection I am looking for help on adding a additional video card to drive the third monitor that will work with the current video card. The ATI Radeon HD5670 video card is connected to the PCIe-16 socket. Their are (1) PCI, (3) PCIe-1, & (1) PCIe-8 sockets available. The Dell ST2310 monitors have a HDMI, DVI, & VGA connections. I think adding a second video card would be the most cost effective way to solve my problem.
Thanks for your help,
Jim
Masi_GC
268 Posts
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September 20th, 2010 07:00
Jim,
IF your HD5670 has a Displayport (DP) OUTPUT, you can using your existing monitors with a DP-to-DVI or DP-to-HDMI adapter.
If your card does NOT have a DP output it is a little sticker. Installing two video adapters on a system can be difficult, expecially if you dont have mulitple PCIeX16 slots.
My suggestions are:
1) contact your vendor and ask if you can exchange your existing card for another ATI HD58xx card that DOES have a DP output. Then buy a ATI CERTIFIED adapter off the ATI web site.
2) purchase another HD5670 for a PCI-e X1 slot (warning, I did a quick search of NewEgg and I didn't find any!)
3) purchase a NVidea card for a PCI-e X1 slot
It is a BAD IDEA to try to use two card with a GPU from the same manufacturer which are different versions. The reason is that they will use the same driver and very often they can't support multiple version of the GPU. On the other hand, if you mix the GPU manufacturers, each card will use their own driver.
Masi_GC
BOUTYM
23 Posts
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October 18th, 2010 19:00
How do you get different manufacturer's cards to pay nice? I've never been able to get two cards to consistently play nice unless they used the same drivers.
Masi_GC
268 Posts
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October 19th, 2010 09:00
Boutym,
I would agree that you should never attempt to use two cards that uses a GPU from the same chip manufacturer unless they are very similar. They have to be at LEAST the same generation.
But others on this forum have successfully mixed ATI and NVidea cards in the same system. I can't claim this will always work because there a myriad combinations of cards, driver version, O/S etc... Nor have I ever seen a posting from a user who combined a Matrox card with another vendors product.
Masi_GC
lostinfog
11 Posts
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October 21st, 2010 16:00
Jim,
I have recently run into this same issue. After I realilzed I did not have a DisplayPort port on the back of the card, I went looking for a PCIe 1X ATI/Radeon alternative and found the PowerColor PCIe X1 HD 4350 board on Newegg. Ever hopeful (both the original X16 and this X1 card should use the same driver), I ordered it and installed it in the x8 slot (so it would have more room for airflow).
That did not work out so well. The computer failed to fully boot, and upon pulling the card and trying a restart, I've got BIOS speaker clicks and failure to boot and windows startup recovery dialogs. I finally got a good boot off of a recovery CD after disconnecting as much as I can, and I'm going to try and build my new XPS Studio 9100 boot capability one device at a time.
I'm guessing I had a power supply capacity problem. Although this particular PowerColor card brags about its power efficiency (it does not use an on-board fan), it still must be too much for the standard XPS 9100 power supply.
Moral of this story: Two ATI Radeon 4000-series cards are likely too much for the off-the-shelf Studio XPS 9100 power supply.
Masi_GC
268 Posts
0
October 22nd, 2010 08:00
Lostinfog,
The HD4350 has very low power requirements, and the XPS 9100's PS should be more than adaquate.
I'm wondering if it would work better in a native 1X slot?
BTW, for anyone who requires 3+ monitors and comes across this thread - ATI released its new 6870 and 6850 cards today and they support 4 monitors out of the box (2 DP, 1 HDMI and 1 DVI). And in reality, it can support 6 monitors IF and ONLY IF you have 4 DP monitors that support the lastest DP standard. That's because the new ATI cards can support daisy chaining DP monitors. And the DP monitors don't have the have the same resolution or orientation (landscape or portrait).
Masi_GC