# 3 Monitors



## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

I have a Dell Vostro 420. It has a 0R038D A00 motherboard and an ATI Radeion HD 3450 display adapter. I am currently using 2 monitors (driven from the ATI card) but I want to add a third monitor.
Is there a way to utilize the VGA output from the motherboard to drive the third monitor? If not, what would be a good choice for a PCI video card to supplement my existing hardware?


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

You can't use the vga output from your motherboard when you have another graphics card attached.

What are you going to be using this third monitor for?

I am currently running a 3 monitor set-up right now with a HD 4850 pci-e and a Hd 3650 pci and it works great.

Keep in mind that you will need to stick with ATI/AMD card since nvidia and ATI/AMD drivers will not work together on the same machine.

If your not going to be gaming with this third monitor than just about any card will do the trick. I would recommend getting a dual output card, mine has only one, because you will soon find it necessary to have four monitor, instead of three :grin:.

Pauldo


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## kinbard (Jul 1, 2006)

Pauldo said:


> because you will soon find it necessary to have four monitor, instead of three :grin:.
> 
> Pauldo


:grin: Mission Impossible theme plays in the background.


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Yes and every night when I go to sleep I dream about this.

http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-atlas20pro.asp

:laugh:


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## kinbard (Jul 1, 2006)

Kinbard drools, then goes to change his shorts when he sees the price tag. Nice, though.


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> You can't use the vga output from your motherboard when you have another graphics card attached.
> 
> What are you going to be using this third monitor for?
> 
> ...


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

You can also just get a usb display device which are good enough for just basic pc use.


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Didn't think about the usb option.

Have you seen any reviews on them?

Have you seen the wireless option?

If it works that would be pretty cool.

http://www.wisair.com/products/reference-designs/display-adapter/

Pauldo


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

I know the wired ones are ok but's haven't heard of the wireless ones , my guess is the wired ones would be cheaper and more reliable( thats pretty much a constant in electronics).


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Thanks :grin:


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

sturpe said:


> I have a Dell Vostro 420. It has a 0R038D A00 motherboard and an ATI Radeion HD 3450 display adapter. I am currently using 2 monitors (driven from the ATI card) but I want to add a third monitor.
> Is there a way to utilize the VGA output from the motherboard to drive the third monitor? If not, what would be a good choice for a PCI video card to supplement my existing hardware?


Ok. So now I have the Radeon HD 3450 PCIe and the Radeon 9000 PCI installed. I took the advice and got a second dual video card so I can add that 4th monitor in the future! Now what software do I need to use to make all the monitors work?


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Windows will recognize the new monitor. Probably the easiest way to enable it would be to do it thru Catalyst Control Center. Click on Dispalys Manager and you should have a third monitor greyed out. Click on it and CCC will ask if you want to extend you Windows desktop onto this display. Click Yes and you should have it up and running. 

Biggest problem I have found is that you can't stretch one background image across multiple desktops without special software. The one I use is Display Fusion. I use it mostly for displaying one wallpaper background over three monitors but it does have some pretty neat features that come along with it.]

Have fun! :grin:

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> Windows will recognize the new monitor. Probably the easiest way to enable it would be to do it thru Catalyst Control Center. Click on Dispalys Manager and you should have a third monitor greyed out. Click on it and CCC will ask if you want to extend you Windows desktop onto this display. Click Yes and you should have it up and running.
> 
> Biggest problem I have found is that you can't stretch one background image across multiple desktops without special software. The one I use is Display Fusion. I use it mostly for displaying one wallpaper background over three monitors but it does have some pretty neat features that come along with it.]
> 
> ...


Windows is recognizing the PCI card, but cannot find a driver for it. When I insert the CD that came with the card, the message says the driver does not support XP. Browsing the CD, I cannot find an XP driver.

When I go to the ATI web site and look for a driver for the ATI Radeon 9000, the only choice I see is a different Catalyst Control Center. (Different from the one I already have installed, and it appears to be an older version.) I tried installing that CCC but got the same message. There must be a way to download a driver only for the card, but so far I cannot find how. I have a request placed with ATI, but so far no response.

Does anyone have help on this part of the problem?

Thanks,


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Have you tried uninstalling all ATI drivers, for both cards, and re-installing?

Try using the drivers from your 3450 and see if it will recognize both cards.

Other than that I'm not sure how to proceed. For the HD versions they seperate out the different drivers and software but they don't do that for the 9000.

Let us know if AMD responds to your email and what the solution was.

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> Have you tried uninstalling all ATI drivers, for both cards, and re-installing?
> 
> Try using the drivers from your 3450 and see if it will recognize both cards.
> 
> ...


I did get in touch with AMD. They said the two cards are not compatible, at least in my system. Their only solution to add more than two monitors was to use a Fire MV2400 card in one of my PCIe X1 slots. That's a pricey solution, 300 bucks or so. I won't be going that way any time soon!

So I am still looking for a solution. I have a PCIe X16 slot (currently occupied by the ATI 3450, 2 unused PCIe X1 slots and 2 unused PCI slots to work with. So I am still looking for a low cost solution if anyone has another idea.

Thanks,

Paul


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

This is ridiculous!

Where did all the pci graphics cards go? There were many more options when I purchased my 3650 back in June of last year

It would work if you were able to find an HD 3XXX series card, or possibly a 2XXX series card. You should probably look locally, though, so you can return it if it doesn't work. 

The highest one I can find is a radeon HD 2400, *here*.

There was also a Fire MV2200 for $94, *here*, which should do just fine, especially since AMD is recommending a Fire card to you.

Did they mention why it won't work?

I can't believe how much of a pain this has been for you. It should not be this way.

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> This is ridiculous!
> 
> Where did all the pci graphics cards go? There were many more options when I purchased my 3650 back in June of last year
> 
> ...



If I understood the AMD guy correctly, he wanted me to use just one video card. The Fire mv2400 supports 4 monitors with the one card. If I read it correctly, the MV2200 only supports 2 monitors so I would still have to make it work in conjunction with my existing card.

I haven't completely given up on making this work. I tried uninstalling (and removing) my 3450 card and I could not get the 9000 card to work, even by itself. So I think I must have done something wrong. I am going to go back and work with just the 9000 card but I can't do it until the first of the week. I'll let you know what I discover.

Thanks for the help and best wishes.

Paul


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

I think it's because there is usually only one dedicated pci slot for video cards on most motherboards (meaning a pci video card would only work in that slot), to date I have never gotten two regular pci cards to work at the same time on one board.


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Emosun-

Are you talking pci-e or just plain pci?

Hmm. I might have to try putting two pci (no -e) graphics cards in this weekend and see what happens. I do know that the guys at Digital Tigers state that you can use more than one.

sturpe-

So is your Radeon HD 3450 not in the PCI-E x16 slot?

All I can say is that I have a Radeon HD 4850 on my PCI-E slot and a Radeon HD 3650 on my PCI (regular old) slot on the same computer and it installed and works great.

I was just assuming that the 9000 was too old and the drivers didn't mix with your 3450. It is interesting that you couldn't get the 9000 to work by itself. I'd be interested to see what happens if you get it working and then plop in your 3450.

Pauldo


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

How about Omega drivers for the 9000 card?
http://www.omegadrivers.net/


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

sturpe said:


> I have a Dell Vostro 420. It has a 0R038D A00 motherboard and an ATI Radeion HD 3450 display adapter. I am currently using 2 monitors (driven from the ATI card) but I want to add a third monitor.
> Is there a way to utilize the VGA output from the motherboard to drive the third monitor? If not, what would be a good choice for a PCI video card to supplement my existing hardware?


Ok, here is the latest update. I finally got the PCI card to work (sort of at least) in conjunction with the PCIe X16 card. I tried so many things that I am not sure which combination worked but here is what I think I did!

I uninstalled both cards in software, then physically removed both cards from the computer. I booted up into the bios and set the option to look at the onboard video contoller first. Then I shut down the PC and installed the PCI card. Next I booted to the bios and set it to look first at the PCI card. After continuing the boot the PC found the new hardware (as before.) Next, I was able to find a driver on the CD that came with the card, but only after pointing to the exact inf file. (If I didn't point to the exact inf file, it would find a non XP compatible driver.) Lastly, I shut down and reinstalled the PCIe card and pointed the bios to look at the PCIe card first.

Now all three monitors are working but I still have a slight glitch. The monitor attached to the PCI card (3rd monitor) seems "sluggish". For example, If I try to reposition a window on the 3rd monitor, it does not move smoothly. It will move a few inches and then "re-paint" itself on the monitor. Another program I run is CW Skimmer (a ham radio application). This program has a horizontally scrolling display. If I drag the CW Skimmer window to the 3rd monitor, it pretty much freezes the displays (at least the one on the 3rd monitor.

I hope I am adequately discribing the behavior of the 3rd monitor, but I don't know any other way to describe it except sluggish. Does anyone have any idea why the 3rd monitor would seem to be sluggish?

Thanks for everyone's help.

Paul


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Those symptoms sound like what happens when you don't install drivers for the graphics card and just use the ones that come with Windows.

Does Catalyst Control Center show both graphics cards?

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> Those symptoms sound like what happens when you don't install drivers for the graphics card and just use the ones that come with Windows.
> 
> Does Catalyst Control Center show both graphics cards?
> 
> Pauldo



Yes, Catalyst Control Center IS showing both graphics cards.

Paul


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Do you have hydravision installed?

The old 3.XX version makes things realy difficult on my system.

You didn't mention anything about installing your 3450 drivers. 

Have you tried clicking on Update in the Device Manager for the 9000?

On a side note, I did find out why AMD is recommending the FireMV. It will support desktop spanning where as a two card set-ups have a much harder time with that. For example they can't span fullscreen video across multiple monitors (there are exceptions but it is hit and miss to get it working properly).

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> Do you have hydravision installed?
> 
> The old 3.XX version makes things realy difficult on my system.
> 
> ...


I do not have Hydravision installed. I did install it this evening but it didn't change anything. I uninstalled it.

I installed the 3450 drivers as part of the appropriate Catalyst Control Center. (The 9000 driver was installed from the CDROM that came with the 9000 PCI board.) I tried clicking on the 9000 driver update in device manager, but is says no better driver is available. The 9000 driver that is showing under display adapter in device manager is 6.14.10.6360. I'm trying to find if that is the latest.

In device manager, under "monitors" I was showing 6 monitors. There were 3 "default monitors", 2 "plug and play monitors", and 1 "LG L227W (analog)" listed. I uninstalled everything except the LG and all three monitors are still up and running, but now I am going to reboot. I don't know if there is anything significant about the listings under "monitors", but I would have expected to see different listings, specifically, the Dell and HP monitors that I also use.

More later, I'm still playing with it!

Paul


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

sturpe said:


> I do not have Hydravision installed. I did install it this evening but it didn't change anything. I uninstalled it.
> 
> I installed the 3450 drivers as part of the appropriate Catalyst Control Center. (The 9000 driver was installed from the CDROM that came with the 9000 PCI board.) I tried clicking on the 9000 driver update in device manager, but is says no better driver is available. The 9000 driver that is showing under display adapter in device manager is 6.14.10.6360. I'm trying to find if that is the latest.
> 
> ...


After rebooting (with no improvment) I downloaded and installed the monitor drivers from their respective manufacturers. Now the correct monitor names are shown in device manager under "monitors". Still no change in the sluggishness of the #3 monitor which is attached to the 9000 card.

I might add that yesterday I disabled the 3450 card and drove one monitor from the 9000 card. The monitor was sluggish even in that configuration. To rule out a monitor problem, I swapped monitors. Whatever monitor I drove from the 9000 card (still with the 3450 card disabled, but not physically removed) was still sluggish.


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

Wish I could come up with something but the more I read about using two, or more, video cards the more I don't think that this is going to work.

It would work with another HD 3XXX or above card (possibly anything with an HD in front of it but I have seen posts that talk about the Hd 2XXX cards as having different drivers) but the 9000 is just too different than the 3450.

There are only two things that I can think of that might affect this situation. Looking for an updated BIOS and/or updated chipset drivers for your motherboard.

Pauldo


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## sturpe (Mar 27, 2009)

Pauldo said:


> Wish I could come up with something but the more I read about using two, or more, video cards the more I don't think that this is going to work.
> 
> It would work with another HD 3XXX or above card (possibly anything with an HD in front of it but I have seen posts that talk about the Hd 2XXX cards as having different drivers) but the 9000 is just too different than the 3450.
> 
> ...


Good News! Things are working. I'm not sure what the magic bullet was but here is what I did.

First I uninstalled (in software) the display adapters for the 3400 series and the 9000 series. I also uninstalled all ATI software. That included Catalyst Control Center. Then I enabled the onboard video. Then I shut down and physically removed both the PCI (9000)and the PCIe (3450) cards.

I rebooted to make sure the onboard video hardware would work. It did. I shut down and installed the 9000 PCI card. After rebooting and installing the driver for the 9000, I was able to use two monitors but only in the clone mode. The ATI support site called for a Catalyst Control Center for the 9000 that would not install. So after trying several different options, I decided to put the 3450 card back in and install the Catalyst Control that is recommended for the 3450 card.

I also pointed the bios to look first at the PCI card (instead of the PCIe card) and the computer booted up normally and all three monitors now are working correctly.

I did notice that there was a new driver (just out I believe) for the 3400 series cards. The new 3400 driver is 8.600.0.0. The one I was previously using was 8.591.0.0. I don't know if the new driver figured into the fix, but I'm just hoping I never have to reinstall things, because I would not want to take a chance on getting it working again!

Thanks for everyone's help!

Paul


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## Pauldo (Jun 22, 2008)

That's awesome!

Glad you got it working and thanks for the update.

Pauldo


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