Trying to setup 2 VGA + 1 HDMI on HD 5450 card

[Javamac]

Hey folks. I just picked up an HD 5450 Radeon card to take some of the stress off of the main board and also to see if there's any picture improvement for movies.
I also had a third monitor lying around and I thought I should put it to use. I bought a DVI-VGA adapter, and am trying to get all three monitors up and running.
Upon booting the system up, the new VGA monitor (currently on the adapter) and the HDMI come up, the VGA in blue shading only. Once I get to the login screen for Windows, the VGA monitor goes off, and the other VGA kicks in with full colour.
Catalyst is only picking up two monitors, and I'm wondering what's going on here.
Any help would be appreciated. Happy to provide more info as needed.

 

[bobkn]

I dimly recall that to use the AMD Eyefinity feature (as many as 6 monitors running on a single graphics card), the 3rd and subsequent monitors must use the card's Displayport outputs. (That could be with adapters.)

Some 5450 cards have no Displayport outputs. If yours has one VGA, one HDMI, and one DVI, it's probably one of them.

Sorry that I can't be more encouraging.

 

[Javamac]

Well, that is the case. I have three different outputs, HDMI, VGA, and DVI. I was under the impression that any card with eyefinity capabilities would allow for it regardless of the way it's under taken.
If I'm not able to get it up and running, I'm going to be fairly disappointed. I was hoping to turn the older model into a VMWare dedicated monitor.
Any other thoughts? Is there a way to get both the card and the onboard chip to work simultaneously?

 

[dsperber]

I was under the impression that any card with eyefinity capabilities would allow for it regardless of the way it's under taken.

I know nothing about Eyefinity.

But it is Displayport technology which supports one or more monitors from a single Displayport connector.

If I'm not able to get it up and running, I'm going to be fairly disappointed. I was hoping to turn the older model into a VMWare dedicated monitor.
Any other thoughts? Is there a way to get both the card and the onboard chip to work simultaneously?

This is not a video card designed for more than two monitors simultaneously, as there are "2 400Mhz RAMDAC's" on the card. A RAMDAC controls a connector/monitor, so with only two RAMDAC's you can only control two monitors.

You can physically connect three monitors at the same time, though only two will actually be utilized. But if you use the HDMI (digital) connection then the other digital connection (DVI) will disappear (as far as Windows and the Catalyst drivers are concerned), although it will actually still appear (as "disabled") as a third monitor in the picture shown by Catalyst Control Center.

In other words I don't think it supports HDMI+DVI as the two "active" monitors. It supports either (a) VGA+HDMI, or (b) VGA+DVI. I may be wrong here, but I believe that's how it works.


I have installed the HD5450 in four separate machines for family/friends, as it is a terrific upgrade from the onboard Intel HD Graphics typically found now. It's certainly NOT a high-end card with super-performance, but it's still a very nice upgrade especially with its 1GB of memory. And its price (around $40) can't be beat. And it also is a 1/2-size card so it fits into a "small form factor" case, which is often a prerequisite for the upgrade.

 

[dsperber]

In order to get 3-monitor support from this card, you need to have the "Eyefinity Edition" of the product.

This replaces the HDMI connection with a Displayport connection.

Read about it here. Note that it is only a 512MB version of the card, not 1GB.

 

[alphanumeric]

Also if the DVI connector is a DVI-D (Digital only) and not a DVI-I (Integrated- Digital and Analog) the DVI to VGA adapter won't work because there is no analog signal. The adapter doesn't convert the signal it just picks off the analog signal and feeds it to the correct VGA pin out.