Radeon X1600 Dual monitor-ing

[Crater]

Okie dokie. I just bought a Radeon x1600 512mb AGP graphics card today. Came home, installed it, and tried to get the dual monitors goin, seems easy 'nuff right? OH NO. NOT WITH ME. :-/ SO. I did what all the manuals say and go to the display window and settings and extend the desktop over. Then I go into the ATI CCC and make sure its activated there. La-di-da no bueno. So I reboot. Maybe thats what it took right? Well kinda. I started feeling good when both screens came up and started showing all the tests and such of the bios loadin and stuff being detected. However, when it came to the windows login screen the secondary monitor just went black. It didnt power down. Just went black. Says its still getting a signal. I try changin the settings to clone, didnt help. So i rebooted again and the same thing happened. I check to make sure the settings we're still good and active, they're fine. If I switch the display mode so the secondary BECOMES the primary display y'know? Then my original primary shows what SHOULD be on the secondary monitor (no taskbar, no icons) but the secondary monitor (now the primary) still is black. So I cant find anything to fix it!!!! AHH. Also im pretty tech-savvy so don't be gentle . Usually I can figure these things out easily.

Thanks in Advance.

Crater

 

[ewhitaker]

Same Exact Problem!

I am having the exact same problem. I have a Dell XPS 410 and got this video card from Dell. They won't support it because its not their card. Can't get any help from Vision Tek either - they send you to Dell.

My main monitor is a flat screen digital and my secondary monitor is a flat screen analog. At first I thought it might be that the analog cable just didn't like using the analog to dvi adapter, but after switching the cables around the other monitor went black.

Have tried every possible solution I could think of, but nothing works. If anyone has a fix for this please let us know! I am guessing its a driver issue.

 

[resu]

what ports have these cards got?
2x DVI? or VGA and DVI?
have you tried running 1 monitor out of ech port ? juts to check each port is working..

 

[AlbertLionheart]

I have had the same problem but with the Nvidia GeForce 7600GS cards (2) running 3 TFT monitors. Sorted by downloading the latest drivers, removing all references to the old drivers by booting into Safe mode, and restarting. This should get you one monitor only, then install the driver for the video card and then extend the desktop using the graphics properties tools. It should not make any difference whether is is the DVI or analogue connections unless you have set the refresh rate too high for one of the screens.
|Hope this helps

 

[ewhitaker]

what ports have these cards got?
2x DVI? or VGA and DVI?
have you tried running 1 monitor out of ech port ? juts to check each port is working..

2 DVI and came with a vga adapter. I have tried both ports. After all the research I did, it seems its just an issue with the drivers. It has trouble with many motherboards. I'm exchanging it for another brand.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

There seems to be no logic to this problem of compatibilty. I have just had to replace a pair of Asus PCI-E cards which would not work on an Asus board. A couple of cheap and cheerful cards works a treat. Weird.

 

[ewhitaker]

I have had the same problem but with the Nvidia GeForce 7600GS cards (2) running 3 TFT monitors. Sorted by downloading the latest drivers, removing all references to the old drivers by booting into Safe mode, and restarting. This should get you one monitor only, then install the driver for the video card and then extend the desktop using the graphics properties tools. It should not make any difference whether is is the DVI or analogue connections unless you have set the refresh rate too high for one of the screens.
|Hope this helps

I have no problems with the GeForce cards. The ATI x1600 gamers edition is the one giving me the problems. Refresh rate was set to 60 for each monitor and even tried lower resolutions 800x600 for each and it still does not work. I am using it now, but it seems to only like to work on one monitor. I have used the ATI removal tool to make sure all drivers and software is removed before trying a reinstall, but it just wont work, with or without the catalyst software.

Funny thing is even now, with the ATI x1600 being used on just one monitor, I still can't run games without it bombing out. The games just simply disappear after about 10 minutes and I get a quick system error message about how my resolution is set too high. My resolution is set to 1024x768 on a 20 inch dell digital flat screen. I've also tried 800x600. Although the screen goes black, I can still hear the sound and I have to do a hard reboot in order to get things back to normal.

After all my research on the net about this particular card, I have yet to see anyone that has got two monitors to work with this card. Everything I've read is about frustration and lack of support and the card eventually being returned.

 

[Studio2bn]

Needing Dual ATI X1600 Cards ???

Hey...newbie to your site here.....I am wondering if i need to install "dual cards" to solve all my problems.....i had the same problem when first installing a dual monitor set up....i am not a gamer..but a photographer & fine art printer ..and photographers & printers have "some" of the same issues as gamers when it comes to a fast dual monitor setup...only to the color side more so..... ....my problem was the "drivers"..went into wacom and viewsonic... Updated and BAM..both monitors came up perfect....i am running the radeon x1600 single w/dual dvi outlets....i am running the wacom 21ux (and yes, these are nice !!! ) and running in 2nd is a viewsonic g225fb crt.... The problems i am running into is the fact that i can not seem to color calibrate my monitors independent of each other....i cannot seem to get the viewsonic to calibrate back to the great colors/visual it was before i went to the dual setup...i need the ability to totally color match/calibrate colors on my monitors before sending anything to the printers (epson 9800).....it needs to be wysiwyg !!! wacom 21ux as #1.....viewsonic #2.....have tried all the switching of plugins ...no help......the monitors look really good.....but not color calibrated to the point i need them... I hope there is some of you that are much more tech savvy than myself that have possibly run into this or anything like this !!! any help, advice, experience or cure would be very much appreciated ... Thanks..... J. Michael