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Successful Video Upgrade -- Business Multi-Monitor On Optiplex 755 MT
Folks,
Please allow me to share my success upgrade a nice off-lease Dell Optiplex 755 MT for multi-monitor.
If you are looking to use a great system for business, but want to add more monitors (which is fantastic for productivity) then this solution might be nice for you. And making a multi-monitor graphics solution that works is both easy and tricky at the same time! It's easy if all the hardware is known to work together! So, this note is on that topic.
* Using ATI FirePro 2450 in PCI Express 16e slot.
* Four monitors (via included VGA or DVI adapters) PLUS the motherboard video still works!
* Upgraded the BIOS to the most recent.
* Note that this card runs PCI 2.0, and it works in what apparently is a PCIe 1.0a slot on the 755 MOBO. A 2.1 card may not work.
* This is for business, and all five monitors work fine now, even with YouTube. This is not intended as a gaming environment.
* There are a few things to try in the BIOS in terms of settings -- for a while there was a memory error and the thing wouldn't boot -- it took a little time to figure out he exact configuration.
* WIndows 7 is the OS used -- and Windows Aero works.
* I'm not long having any crashes associated with the older Jaton NVidia PCI-based cards we were using previously.
* Physical slot dimension are fine.
* Power consumption seems fine.
* Cost from ITX Canada was about $ 250 plus shipping, tax etc.
* This is the Sapphire version of the AMD ATI card, which is fine.
* The AMD part number is 100-505531.
* The five monitors are not identical (three different geometries and two vendors)
* Device manager lists the latest AMD video drivers for this card as installed and working -- I'm not completely clear if the drivers were installed from the download, or later.
* The actual install was a little hairy, and required persistence. When I reboot I will see about noting the exact BIOS settings.
* The system has not crashed once now, in a week of constant uptime, including with browsers open for long periods of time with 20 tabs or more and 80% physical memory usage.
* System has 6 GB RAM, is running 64-bit and BIOS A22.
Good luck.
speedstep
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47K Posts
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March 11th, 2014 13:00
AMD 100-505531 FirePro 2450
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195083
It comes with 2 DUAL DMS connectors.
John.H.Morris
4 Posts
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March 11th, 2014 20:00
FYI, I'm not (yet) using any of the ATI special multi-monitor graphics management software. I'd like try maybe when I have more time (like probably never, as it seems to be working fine now).
John.H.Morris
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March 16th, 2014 10:00
FYI the 2450 card is EOL Jan 15, 2014 -- seems to be replaced by newer cards -- also seems to be quite a few units still in the channel. Problem with the newer cards is that they are PCIe 2.1 -- and it's not clear (needs to be tested, can someone do this?) that a PCIe 2.1 card can work in what is apparently the PCIe 1.0a slot found in the Optiplex 755.
speedstep
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March 18th, 2014 03:00
PCI-E version is not usually an issue Radeon 5450, 6450, 7750 low profile single slot cards work fine.
NEWER cards that have WINDOWS 8 BIOS seem to be a problem.
Disabling the PCI SERR msg seems to help with some cards.
Lowest model in the new series is R7 240X and I haven't tried one yet. These cards are PCI-E 3.0
http://www.microcenter.com/product/424753/R7240D32GXOC_R7_240X_Boost_2GB_DDR3_PCIEx16_Graphics_Video_Card_-_DVH
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1226&pid=2021&lid=1
JHM770
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November 23rd, 2017 22:00
FROM JHM AGAIN LATER: Almost 2018 -- AND the cards are still working on the same machine -- and it's now upgraded to Windows 10! You should make sure that only the 2015 driver is used -- Windows sometimes wants to overwrite with the newer Radeon driver, and it's not compatible. The old one works fine! I realize this is not for sale any more, but in case anyone is working with older equipment, this is a great solution.
JHM770
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November 23rd, 2017 22:00
Almost 2018 -- cards work great -- and it's now Windows 10 -- make sure not to let an OS update overwrite the 2015 drivers -- they are the last ones that will work.