[Help/Error] Two monitors, two problems

[HyperHacker]

A dual-head card or adapter would be ideal, but the video card I just bought cost everything I'll have for a while, and I can only return it for half what I paid (technically half the cost was shipping), so I'd like to avoid ending up not being able to use it. The AGP card does have DVI, but I can't say how well it works - the drivers crash (BSOD) when I try to use the TV-Out as a separate monitor, which isn't really a good sign, and I have no DVI devices to test with.

I don't see any BIOS updates for the AGP card. Also, hibernation still doesn't work with this card, which makes me think it's a problem with Windows or the BIOS.

I guess in the worst case I'll have to trade my AGP card for my mom's, which is dual-head but only 16MB. (She only uses one monitor, but that was the best deal we could find.) I fear it won't run a lot of the 3D apps I use, though. (Nintendo 64 emulation, mostly. Not high-end games, but more than just spinning cubes.) Plus that still leaves me with a useless second card.

BTW, thanks for all the help everyone.

[edit] Alright, I found a workaround for the SDL bug, and got the BIOS setup/Windows boot screen on the screen I wanted as a bonus. Simple solution: Make the PCI card primary both in the BIOS and in Windows. I didn't want to do this before because I feared the card I was using might die at any moment leaving me unable to access the BIOS settings to switch back to AGP, but hopefully that shouldn't be an issue now. 3D is working on both screens too, so that's the big problem out of the way. However, Windows still won't recover from hibernation (tried S1/POS and S3/STR in the BIOS, with Call VGA BIOS on and off). It brings both monitors up at the correct resolution and refresh rate to a black screen and freezes. If I plug in a USB device it powers on, then off again a few seconds later. Also, it still won't use both cards if AGP is set to primary in the BIOS.

Oh, and I also found the source of the colour problems: bad video settings. :-p

[edit] Oh yeah, and ever since I made the PCI card primary in Windows, every window redraws UNBEARABLY SLOW, especially translucent ones. It makes a text editor completely unuseable with translucency enabled, which I do all the time. >_<

Edited June 23, 2006 by HyperHacker

[HyperHacker]

Well, I reinstalled Windows. Nothing changed. I can't decide whether to switch to Linux or just toss the whole thing out the window and go amish.

[edit] I found a workaround for the slowness: Swap the monitors (big one back on AGP) and re-position them in Windows so the big monitor is on the left like it is in real life. That doesn't fix the slowdown, but the small one is pretty much just for throwing status displays, Winamp, and desktop icons into, so it doesn't really matter if it's drawing a bit slow; the big one is where I would put web browsers, text editors etc, so as long as it's fast, it's all good.

Although, one side effect to this arrangement: Setting up wallpapers is a big pain.

[image here]

(Actual image on the left, result on the right. You might want to avoid clicking that if you're at work; it's nothing major, but why risk it?)

[more edit]

"System Standby Failed

---------------------------

The device driver for the 'ATI Technologies, Inc. RAGE XL PCI' device is preventing the machine from entering standby. Please close all applications and try again. If the problem persists, you may need to update this driver."

So at least Windows knows that there's a problem now, and doesn't just try anyway and crash. Not so with hibernation though. :-/

Edited June 24, 2006 by HyperHacker

[markajm]

The AGP card does have DVI, but I can't say how well it works - the drivers crash (BSOD) when I try to use the TV-Out as a separate monitor, which isn't really a good sign, and I have no DVI devices to test with.

just because it crashes on tv-out does not mean it will crash when using the dvi. they are two completly different things.

also, you don't need a dvi device to use the dvi port. an every-day crt using a dvi-dsub adaptor will work fine (like in the pic). hunt around and you can find one for about $5 - $7

[Takeshi]

I can only say, my 4 yr old MSI K7T266 MoBo with ATI AIW xt600 AGP with dual-VGA out (connected to 2 LCDs) works without any problems.

[HyperHacker]

Alright, well I called the local Circuit City because they're really the only electronics place in town. As expected they're charging a whopping 15 dollars which is more than I have at the moment, so I'll have to wait a little while to get one. However when I was looking them up I noticed they mention "this adapter has enough bandwidth for up to 1600x1200 @ 60hz" and such. Am I going to need a really expensive one to use high resolutions? Currently I have 1600x1200 on one monitor and 1152x864 on the other (I'd like to go up to at least 1280x1024, but the monitor can't do it), and I simply can't live with less than 16-bit colour (uuuuuuugly) or less than 70hz refresh (it burns!). I fear if I buy one of these adapters it won't support such high resolutions. For that matter, the video card itself only goes up to 1024x768 when TV Out is enabled (it can do that fine as long as the TV is disabled in Windows; it just shows the same thing as the monitor). I'm not sure whether it does this because TVs don't support such high resolutions, or if it's actually limited to such low resolution when using 2 devices.

[HyperHacker]

Well the adapter was a good idea. Everything's working nice again except for one small problem - when Windows starts up, it forgets the primary monitor's display settings and puts it at 640x480 at 60hz. If nothing else I can probably write a quick program to switch it back on startup. The secondary one (connected to the DVI port) starts up at 1152x864@75 just like I left it (the highest that monitor can go at >60hz), 3D works, hibernation and standby work, and it's not slow.

If anyone does know how to make it not forget the resolution and refresh rate that'd be great - it's probably a problem with those dumb video drivers (but at least they're not crashing) - but like I said it's not a huge problem. As for the PCI card, well, I guess my brother might like it as a replacement for his really really old card.

[edit] Hm, maybe it's more of a problem than I thought. Since it starts up in a low resolution, it scrambles the desktop icons because a lot of them are outside the work area. Setting it back to the resolution I wanted was easy enough, but it's too late to avoid moving the icons. It actually seems to forget where they're placed - as well as where the taskbar is, defaulting it to the right side of the second monitor when I want it at the right of the first - just as it forgets the display settings. Even the icons on the second monitor, which stays at the correct settings, get moved back to where they were before.

[more editing] I see in the registry, at HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO, there's a lot of keys with CLSIDs for names specifying various video settings that I've used. Maybe I should delete some? Also I heard of a NoSaveSettings key, but it didn't exist, and I'd assume the default is off.

[guess what, it's an edit] I found something interesting in the Windows troubleshooter (for once):

Your primary display adapter should be installed in the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slot 0 or 1. This slot is usually the farthest from the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots and nearest the edge of the motherboard. This display adapter should be connected to your primary monitor.

If you are using both PCI and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) display adapters, the PCI display adapter must be installed in the first PCI slot on your computer.

If you have an AGP display adapter and a PCI display adapter installed, most computers select the PCI card as the primary display adapter because the PCI bus is enumerated before the AGP bus. This enumeration is a function of your computer's BIOS and is not controlled by the Windows operating system.

To use an AGP card as the primary display adapter, and a PCI card as the secondary, one of the following conditions must exist:

The computer's BIOS must support the enumeration of the AGP bus before the PCI bus.

The PCI display adapter must have the option to disable VGA functionality at the hardware level. Check the documentation for your PCI display adapter for information about disabling VGA functionality.

I'm just going to stick to using the adapter though.

Edited June 28, 2006 by HyperHacker

[HyperHacker]

Well I bought a TV tuner card today, "EasyTV MPEG WDM TVTuner"... It's cheap so I don't expect it to work that well, but I would expect it to at least work. Exact same problem after installing the drivers: This device cannot start. (Code 10). Should I be buying a new motherboard or something? Really ticks me off. Also it's still forgetting the display settings and position of the desktop icons and taskbar. I've been on vacation for a while so I didn't find anything related to that.

Edited July 7, 2006 by HyperHacker