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.
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) |