Video May not be Displayed on One Monitor When Alienware Desktop is Connected to Multiple Monitors

Summary: When connecting four monitors to an Alienware desktop, one of the monitors may not display video after booting to the operating system.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Symptoms

Affected Platforms:

  • Alienware Area-51 AAT2250
  • Alienware Aurora ACT1250

When a customer connects multiple monitors to an Alienware Area-51, there are two possible symptoms:

  • Connecting to four monitors and boot to the operating system, only three out of the four displays video. One of them is unable to display video.
  • Connecting to three monitors, only two of the three displays video. One of them is unable to display video.

Cause

This is expected behavior for the support scope of four monitors depending on their bandwidth requirements.

Some monitor combinations may not display on all four monitors due to bandwidth requirements. Each I/O port on NVIDIA GeForce cards (amp 30-Series and 40-Series) has a pixel clock limit of 1335 MHz. If a monitor's pixel clock exceeds this limit, the Serializer/Deserializer (SOR) for that I/O port must use two SORs to drive the monitor. The number of monitors cannot exceed three, when connecting to AW2725QF, AW2725DF, or AW3225QF. The number of monitors cannot exceed two, when connecting to AW2725QF, AW2725DF, and AW3225QF.

Monitor AW2725QF FW 33T112(4k) AW2524HF FW_M3B103 AW2724HF FW_M3B103 AW2523HF FW_M3T104 AW2725DF AW3235QF AW3423DW Result
Max Pixel Clock 1695.5 (MHz) 1248 (MHz) 853.07 (MHz) 875.39 (MHz) 1690 (MHz) 2331.75 (MHz) 986.99 (MHz)  
RTX4090/RTX4060TI V V V V       Fail
RTX4090/RTX4060TI   V V V V     Fail
RTS4090/RTX4060TI   V V V   V   Fail
RTX4090/RTX4060TI         V V V Fail

Resolution

This is expected behavior:

If you need four monitors, you can change to other 4K monitors (for example, Dell P2723QE) or a monitor with a max Pixel Clock lower than 1335Mhz.

Monitor Max Pixel Clock
AW2524HF  
AW2523HF 875.39(MHz)
AW2725QF 1695.5(MHz)
AW2724HF 853.07(MHz)
AW2724DM 768.5(MHz)
AW2725DF 1690(MHz)
AW2723DF 1126.99(MHz)
AW3225QF 2331.75 (MHz)
AW3423DW 986.99 (MHz)
AW3423DWF 1019.27 (MHz)

Affected Products

Alienware Area-51 AAT2250, Alienware Aurora ACT1250
Article Properties
Article Number: 000248145
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 28 May 2025
Version:  5
Find answers to your questions from other Dell users
Support Services
Check if your device is covered by Support Services.