Sapphire X1950XT Dual Monitor Support?!

BipolarChucker · May 22, 2007, 08:48 AM

Hi All,

This is my first foray in to Dual Monitor support with ATI cards and it's not going well! I previously owned an nVidia 6800GT that did dual monitor without batting an eyelid.

I bought a Dell E520 and also purchased a Sapphire X1950XT 256MB PCIE graphics card with a Zalman VF900 to cool it and get it to fit in the case. I whipped the power supply (Antec 550W) out of my old rig to provide enough juice for the new graphics card and it powered up just fine.

I initially installed the drivers that came with the card and they went on fine. I connected the secondary monitor and enabled the appropriate settings all to no avail. The second monitor will not come to life no matter what I do. I tried the latest Catalyst Drivers and they achieved nothing more than to make both monitors go to sleep as soon as I had rebooted after they were installed.

I have now tried two ATI cards that have exhibited the same issue, neither will power up the second monitor. I tried the Omega drivers and ran ATI Tools which tells me "No DDC!" when I attempt to enable (power on) the second monitor. Changing over the monitor connections doesn't help.

They're both D-SUB (non DVI) monitors but both support the necessary resolutions. Can anyone shed any light on why I would get this problem? Could it have anything to do with the motherboard with it being a Dell thing? If I can't get it working I'll just have to gut the dell machine for components and buy a new ATX mobo but I'd really rather avoid spending the money.

If anyone has had a similar problem and can help I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading.

Bip

***temeteus82*** · May 22, 2007, 08:53 AM

Hi there and welcome to DH!

I think it has nothing to with your motherboard. Install newest ati drivers and use CCC to configure that monitor. CCC should detect the all. Now if this wont work post some screen shots of CCC

BipolarChucker · May 22, 2007, 09:11 AM

Hi Temeteus82, thanks for replying.
I've tried the latest Catalyst drivers but I walked in to a problem straight away in that after installing and rebooting, the monitor that was working just fine simply goes to sleep. I can't do anything.
I can reboot in to VGA only mode but as soon as I attempt to change the resolution at all, the monitor goes to sleep forever more.

***temeteus82*** · May 22, 2007, 09:22 AM

So when you boot to windows it goes to sleep as soon as windows gui is loaded?

Try to boot with just one monitor and then change the resolution. Then shut down the computer and connect the 2nd monitor. And then configure the resolutions for the monitors.

Judas · May 22, 2007, 11:01 AM

Something is very odd,

Generally i've found it the easiest with ati cards to use multiple monitors...

Have you FULLY removed all previous drivers BEFORE installing the ATI card and installing the latest drivers? Perhaps the nvidia residue is still present.

BipolarChucker · Jun 9, 2007, 06:53 AM

Hi all, well, I managed to find a solution. I've written it up on to my blog if anyone would like a read but basically it came down to the motherboard. It was nothing to do with the graphics card and nothing to do with the drivers.

I really think that if Dell are going to sell computers they should list the limitations. The E520's motherboard certainly has one. I gutted the Dell, used a new Asus Commando board, same graphics card I'd bought (x1950XT), processor, memory, HD and CD/DVD from the Dell and hey presto, dual monitor support. Not even a hint of a problem now.

http://www.lewisroberts.com/?p=83