Please Help: Infuriating Problem

[brodie9666]

Hello, this is my first post here and I hope i've created it in the correct part of the forum, if i've not and your a mod please feel free to move it.

Ok, the problem, I bought a "Nvidea Gainward 9600 GT PCX 2 Golden Sample 512mb" Graphics Card which has 2 DVI out ports on the back of it, I have 2 working DVI to DVI cables and i now have 2 identical "Acer V223W LCD" Monitors. So being someone naive i connect the cables with the monitors and graphics card and turn my system on and go to "Control Panel > Display > Screen Resolution" and hit Detect quite happily thinking that was all there was too it....

My Primary screen 1 is coming up in the Display dropdown as it should: "1. Acer V223W" yet my secondary display would not appear at all. I attempted to use my Nvidea Control Panel to no avail, I updated all my drivers and still nothing.

Thinking that there maybe a physical problem i swap everything around and sure enough both monitors and cables work, but only if they are in the top (Primary) DVI port on the graphics card, so thinking there may be a problem with the lower (secondary) DVI port and wanting to try everything, I, in a moment of madness, plugged in a DVI to VGA adapter and connected the 2nd monitor with a VGA cable and hey presto, dual monitors!!

The problem i have is one, why the hell isnt windows 7s recognising my 2nd monitor unless its plugged in with a VGA cable and even then still not correctly recognising it (in the Screen Resolution screen the display drop down reads 1. Acer V223W and 2. Display device on: VGA). And two, its not letting me set the 2nd monitor as the same resolution as the first so the quality of the 2nd is out and all the text looks distorted (Monitor 1: 1680 x 1050 (recommended) Monitor 2: 1600 x 1024)

Sorry for the long post but i wanted to get in all the details rather than make you good people respond with answers that I have found through trial and error to be incorrect.

Thanks in advance

Brodie

 

[seekermeister]

Why do you jump to the conclusion that it is W7's fault that the second monitor isn't being detected. If I understood what you said, there is output on one video card connector, but not the other. Sounds to me that it is a defective video card. Do you have known good card that you could swap out for a check?

 

[Thorsen]

so thinking there may be a problem with the lower (secondary) DVI port and wanting to try everything, I, in a moment of madness, plugged in a DVI to VGA adapter and connected the 2nd monitor with a VGA cable and hey presto, dual monitors!!

Can you try just hooking one monitor up to the lower DVI port and going DVI to DVI to make sure that the lower port is actually working properly.

Edit: also when you test each monitor, do you see the name of the monitor in the drop down list. One of the monitors might not have drivers installed/attached to it.

 

[brodie9666]

Why do you jump to the conclusion that it is W7's fault that the second monitor isn't being detected. If I understood what you said, there is output on one video card connector, but not the other. Sounds to me that it is a defective video card. Do you have known good card that you could swap out for a check?

Im assuming the lower (secondary) DVI port on the graphics card works because when i stick a DVI to VGA converter and connect the 2nd monitor to it using a VGA cable it works, albeit with a lower resolution to the primary DVI connected monitor.
Cheers for the quick reply though

 

[Thorsen]

And two, its not letting me set the 2nd monitor as the same resolution as the first so the quality of the 2nd is out and all the text looks distorted (Monitor 1: 1680 x 1050 (recommended) Monitor 2: 1600 x 1024)

this is most likely the resolutions that the card can output. VGA output tops out at 1024 for this card and thus looks crappy.

 

[brodie9666]

so thinking there may be a problem with the lower (secondary) DVI port and wanting to try everything, I, in a moment of madness, plugged in a DVI to VGA adapter and connected the 2nd monitor with a VGA cable and hey presto, dual monitors!!

Can you try just hooking one monitor up to the lower DVI port and going DVI to DVI to make sure that the lower port is actually working properly.

Edit: also when you test each monitor, do you see the name of the monitor in the drop down list. One of the monitors might not have drivers installed/attached to it.

When i use the lower DVI port on the Graphics card on its own i get nothing, but this im led to belive it correct, as the top DVI port on the card is the primary one, and plugging anything into the secondary one without a primary connected will not work.

As for the name, no in the win7 display screen it shows:

1. Acer V223W
2. Display device on: VGA

or if I attempt to connect the 2nd monitor via the DVI cable win7 does not see it at all and only provides me with the option to "try to connect anyway on: VGA" when i attempt to detect the 2nd monitor.

 

[Adrian]

The problem i have is one, why the hell isnt windows 7s recognising my 2nd monitor unless its plugged in with a VGA cable and even then still not correctly recognising it (in the Screen Resolution screen the display drop down reads 1. Acer V223W and 2. Display device on: VGA). And two, its not letting me set the 2nd monitor as the same resolution as the first so the quality of the 2nd is out and all the text looks distorted (Monitor 1: 1680 x 1050 (recommended) Monitor 2: 1600 x 1024)
The limitation is the actual card and driver.
7 is responding as it should. Update the card driver and use the dual monitor option.

 

[brodie9666]

Ive updated my graphics card driver, im using:

Driver Date: 03/04/2010
Driver Version: 8.17.11.9745

However, and Im not sure if this is an issue, looking at the device manager its showing my Display Adapter as "NVIDEA GeForce 9600 GT"
Doing an image search on Google for that card it brings up a totally different card. The card i have is a: "Gainward BLISS 9600GT Golden Sample"
More info on it here

In that article it states that the "BLISS 9600GT uses the NVIDEA http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/news/view.php?id=10003&cid=6#GeForce 9600GT graphics chip" So can I presume I have the correct display drivers!?

It also states the following:

"The World’s first graphics card supports DisplayPort, HDMI, Dual-Link DVI-I, and CRT outputs
BLISS 9600GT golden sample supports the most advanced DisplayPort and HDMI output whose resolution can be up to 2560*1600 and 1920*1080. Furthermore, the mainstream Dual-Link DVI-I and CRT (via the DVI-to-D-Sub dongle) is supported in BLISS 9600GT golden sample. BLISS 9600GT golden sample is HDCP compliant and supports NVIDIA PureVideo HD and H.264 decode. You can choose either DisplayPort or HDMI output to connect to the monitor, and then you can start to enjoy the ultimate Blu-ray and HD-DVD movie experience."


hope this helps

 

[Thorsen]

My next post below this one is probably the culprit. Check the DVI cables first
Hope that helps



Gainward

^ is this your card? if so, then the problem could be that the card is no longer being supported. Gainward no longer has them listed as current product Gainward

This is the newest driver from nVidia that supports a 9600GT NVIDIA DRIVERS 197.45 WHQL

or try an older Vista Driver this one is from November for Vista 32x and supports the 9600GT

NVIDIA DRIVERS 195.62 WHQL


Another hardware option is to use one DVI output and one HDMI output with a HDMI-DVI cable
So one starts as first dVI port the second one starts at HDMI port, but both are DVI when they get to monitor.

 

[Thorsen]

Digital Visual Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also look here and make sure that your DVI cables are DVI-I - Dual Link
There is a pic in the "Connector" section....your cables should have pins all the way across if they dont then they are DVI-I - Single Link

 

[brodie9666]

Digital Visual Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also look here and make sure that your DVI cables are DVI-I - Dual Link
There is a pic in the "Connector" section....your cables should have pins all the way across if they dont then they are DVI-I - Single Link

Oooh you maybe on to something here, the cable I have connected from the upper (Primary) DVI Out on my graphics card to the first monitor is a "DVI-D (Dual Link)" (According to your wiki link). Where the cable I was attempting to connect the lower (Secondary) DVI Out on my graphics card to the second monitor is a "DVI-D (Single Link)"

Could me using a mixture of these two types really be the cause of all of the above? Using my DVI-D Dual Link and a VGA cable gives me dual displays but as mentioned above, they have different resolutions and dont look any good. Would my buying a second DVI-D Dual Link cable to match the one plugged in to my first monitor enable Win7 to recognise it do you think?

I really hope so, i'll admit I was starting to give up hope, you have given me a ray of light here, I so hope this is the answer, if so i'll owe you many many pints of your favourite alcohol based beverage!!

 

[brodie9666]

I've just bought a second Dual Link DVI-D Cable and sadly it made no difference. I'm still unable to detect the second monitor. So im back at square one, here again is a list of the facts:

1. 2 Identical Acer V223W LCD Monitors.
2. 2 Belkin Dual Link DVI-D Cables.
3. 1 Gainward BLISS 9600GT Golden Sample Graphics Card with two DVI-I Out ports.*
4. All Drivers (especially Display and Hardware) are up to date and stable.
5. Windows 7 Ultimate Operating System: Up to date and stable.
6. Both Monitors have been tested and are working 100%.
7. Both Cables have been tested and are working 100%.
8. Windows Display and Nvidea Control Panel both cannot detect 2nd Monitor.
9. Dual screens can be displayed when a VGA cable is attached via a DVI-VGA Adapter but due to the resolution mismatch this is not practical.
10. Second display shows "No Signal" on screen when attached to the PC via the DVI cable, but shows "Cable not attached" when the cable is removed from the back of the PC (and leaving it in the back of the monitor).

*The graphics card states that it has "Dual-Link DVI-I" but the two cables im using are Dual-Link DVI-D) would this make a difference? The primary (top) DVI port on the graphics card has one of the DVI-D cables plugged into it and the picture is coming through perfectly on the first monitor.

I'm completely at a loss here, the only think that i can think of is that maybe there is some hardware issue with the secondary DVI Out port on the graphics card, however as I am able to get a VGA signal from it when using an adapter this would lead me to think otherwise.

Please help if your able, I'm totally baffled by this.

Thanks in advance

 

[Dwarf]

Have you actually tried the lower port on its own with a DVI connector? Just because it can output VGA doesn't mean to say that it can output DVI if it is faulty.

Here is an illustration showing the pin layout. It's not very clear, but that doesn't matter here.



The VGA outputs are those indicated in PINK, and it is possible that these are working whereas the other DVI outputs aren't.

 

[brodie9666]

Just tried it and no, nothing. I unplugged the DVI Cable from the top DVI Out on the card and left the bottom one in and got nothing on the monitor.

I did notice something odd though, just out of curiosity I plugged in the VGA cable with the DVI Adapter on the end I need to plug into my Graphics card and again left the top port on the card empty, the screen fired up, so I can confirm that contory to what ive been told, I can run a monitor on the lower DVI Out without something being plugged into the to upper one.

Quick question, if it turns out that the lower DVI port is faulty, am I able to use a Dual-Link DVI-D Splitter (if one exists) in the working DVI Out on the graphics card to run Dual Monitors with Extended Desktop, having a clone of the first screen is of no use to me. Also i would want to be able to run both of these monitors at the same resolution (1680 x 1050 is the recommended resolution for my two monitors)

cheers for your help mate