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25804
August 3rd, 2008 06:00
Vostro 200, how to enable 3 monitors
Hi
For the past 4 years I have had 3 monitors running off twin graphics cards. (each has dual outputs)
I recently 'upgraded' the PC to a vostro 200 and whetver I do I can get no more than 2 montors to work.
I have a pci card (gforce MM40) and an agp card Radeon x300/x550 both of these have dvi and vga outputs (to run a max 4 monitors)
Each one will work fine on it's own in the vostro giving me a max of 2 monitors, however, I cannot get
1) Either of them to work alongside the onboard graphics (regardless of which pallette it snoops first in the bios) it simply disables the one it does not find first or says it has a problem in device manager
2) The two card will also not work together (which would remove the need for the onboard graphocs). Whatever I do the machine only runs one fine and disables the other in device manager saying there is a driver problem, hoever as soon as I remove the other card everthing is OK again.
I really need to go back to three monitors. Does anyboy have any possible solutions please that hopefully do not involve changing the PC.
note: The PC has vista basic installed, if this is possibly driver rather than hardware issue I am prepared to go back to windows XP to solve.
Many thanks in advance
Terry
RickR_WINDOWS-T
11 Posts
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August 4th, 2008 22:00
Hello Terry, My Name is Rick and I work with the Vista team at Microsoft. I would like to try to help you out. I noticed that you have mentioned that you have two separate graphics cards from two different manufactures. Over at the MS Vista Compatibility site they offer a ton of info, and I looked up your particular issue and I found a couple of things. Here is info that I have found that applies.
“•If multiple graphics adapters are present in a system, all of them must use the same WDDM driver. If there are two graphics adapters with WDDM drivers from two different manufacturers, then Windows will disable one of them. The VGA adapter will be enabled, and the second device will be disabled.
Notice that XPDM drivers still support heterogeneous multi-adapter as they did in Windows XP. A user who has such a configuration working fine in Windows XP will encounter a problem when upgrading to Windows Vista. An external monitor connected to one of the graphics adapters will have no video signal, because it is disabled. An error message will appear on system boot, as described later in this article.
The solution for this problem could be as follows:
•A user could force the installation of a XPDM driver for each of these devices, and therefore get heterogeneous multi-adapter multi-monitor to work as in Windows XP.
-Or-
•The user could change the graphics hardware configuration by choosing multiple graphics adapters that use the same WDDM driver. Graphics adapters from the same ASIC family generally have the same graphics driver. In late 2006, each of the major graphics vendors had a single WDDM driver for all supported WDDM graphics adapters. Please consult the graphics vendor's Web site for details on their driver support.”
I hope this helps, you are welcome to visit Windows Vista Compatibility page as they are continuing to update those resources constantly.
Rick
terrymargate
2 Posts
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August 4th, 2008 23:00
Hi Rick
Many thanks for such a detailed response.
However it came a little late for me as I was too impatient. I figured to was a Vista related problem and could not find the solution online so I reverted back to Windows XP. It was a shame to take such a drastic step but the monitors worked instantly upon XP install.
Hopefully your response will help someone else out with similar problem. If ever I get spare tiome and feel brave I will try vista again and use your suggested cure
thanks again
Terry
RickR_WINDOWS-T
11 Posts
0
August 6th, 2008 21:00