Three or more monitors

Nobody has anything? Wow.

I know it's been a month since your post, but I figured I would drop you a reply and tell you what I've found.

 

I have an Optiplex 755 with a Radeon HD 2400 PRO PCIe graphics card, and you definitely can not use the onboard graphics card with a PCIe x16 add on.  This has to do with the way that the chipset connects the integrated graphics card and the x16 card slot, and is not something that can be circumvented.

 

You can add a PCI graphics card, or a PCIe x1 card.  I suggest looking at these items on newegg.com (enter item number in search):

    N82E16814131082 - PowerColor Radeon HD 2400PRO PCI (DVI+VGA)

    N82E16814103056 - Diamond Radeon HD 2400PRO PCI (DVI+VGA)

    N82E16814161079 - HIS Hightech Radeon x1550 PCIe x1 (DVI+DVI)

    N82E16814161197 - HIS Hightech Radeon x1550 PCIe x1 (DVI+VGA)

 

Cheers!

 

Fred 

Thanks for the reply Fred. Am I allowed to add a PCI card along with the PCIe x card and run monitors off both? That would be a fine solution for me.

Since the PCI Express subsystem is completely separate from the PCI bus, I don't think you will have trouble a combination of x16, x1, and PCI slots as long as the specific cards you choose play nicely together. There is no technical reason that I know of that would prevent you from doing that (other than problems with specific graphics cards playing nicely with one and other).

 

I had success with an ATI Radeon HD 2400PRO in my PCI Express x16 slot, and a Radeon 9250 in a PCI slot.  You could have one of these scenarios:

 

x16 - Video Card

x1 OR PCI - Video Card

 

or perhaps even

 

x16 - Video Card

x1 - Video Card

PCI - Video Card

PCI - Video Card

 

If you're not planning on using the monitors that are not connected to the x16 graphics card for games or CAD type applications, you shouldn't have any problems going with PCI or with PCIe x1 for your additional graphics card.  Just keep the games on the monitors attached to your x16 slot.

 

Good Luck!

 

Fred 

No games, just REALLY big spread sheets and lots of simple applications.

 

I'll give it a try and see if I can get this to work. I'll post my results.

 

Thanks for joining to answer this, Fred. It's people like you that make posting for help worth while. Thanks again.

 

Andy 

Andy, glad to hear that you had good luck with the x1 graphics card!  I presently have an  ATI FireMV 2250 in my PCIe x1 slot, and it works just great as well.

 

Too bad for guys like you that Dell would not want to pay me what I would want to work for them, and if they did, they would absolutely not have me solving tech-support issues... I guess this way they get the best of all worlds by getting me to help with an occasional problem for free!

 

Enjoy!

Hi Fred! Just got the HIS Hightech Radeon x1550 PCIe x1 (DVI+VGA) from Newegg today. One of my monitors is an old vga flat panel. Plugged it in and I was up with three monitors in no time. Thanks again for answering me on this. Maybe you should work for Dell since they are clueless. I called their support back when I started with this and they wanted me to purchase a $400.00 card that could support four monitors. They said I could only have one card in the system. This one was $69.00 after rebate. Mark this SOLVED! Thanks again!

 

Andy 

Thank for of exchange information, Would you confirm that this will works independly "not clone" right?
for this kind of configuration.

Yes, that is correct.  I am personally using the following setup now (have been for a few months):

 

Optiplex 755

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8200
• 4GB DDR2-667

1. ATI Radeon HD 2400 (PCI Express x16)
   
   1. Dell 24" Ultrasharp 2405FPW (DVI) @1920x1200x32
   2. Dell 24" Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC (DVI) @ 1920x1200x32
2. ATI FireMV 2250 (PCI Express x1)
   1. Dell 17" Ultrasharp 1704FPT (DVI) @1280x1024x32
   2. Dell 17" E177FPc (VGA) @1280x1024x32

I use this configuration every day at work, and I have my desktop extended onto all 4 monitors such that I can place different content on each monitor without any duplication.  I pretty much always have Visual Studio, Outlook, Firefox, Word, and Excel open, and I spread them across the different screens so that I can see all of what I'm working on with as little window flipping as possible.  It works very well.

 

I'm mostly running Windows XP Pro (32-bit) or Windows Vista Enterprise (x64), depending on what I'm working on at the exact moment, with the ATI Control Panel version of the driver (I hate the Catalyst software, but it works basically the same) with ATI HydraVision for additional multi-monitor features, and the performance in both operating systems is perfect.

 

So, that's a long way of saying that no, not clone.

 

I also had luck using an ATI Radeon 9250 PCI video card before I bought the FireMV card, although the performance was noticably slower when running/debugging our medical imaging application.

Thank you so much for the confirmation, that make me feel very comfortable to foward.
Because i try several combination, but it just won't works at all.
Most of it "clone head" display, that i not going to help me.

I trying to use 4 monitors with my Dimension 5100 model.  Dell sold me a FireMV 2400 card for quad use.  My computer won't even boot up with the card in the machine.  Anybody know why this might happen?

You should post this question in a new thread, it is off-topic.

 

Unfortunately, you haven't really given us much information about your problem either... so, in your post in a new thread, please include things like

• Is your FireMV 2400 PCI, PCI Express x1, or PCI Express x16?
• What other cards are in your machine?
• A complete description of the problem, including

1. What screen do you get to when you try to start up?
2. If you don't see any display (after trying to connect the monitor to each of the 4 outputs), then does your computer beep on start up?  How many times does it beep?
3. Anything else that your computer might be doing that you think could be remotely abnormal or relevant to the problem.

Good luck!