Solved XFX 6950 driver hell! Which version works?

[Maguscreed]

There's several reasons for it, the first is that I was just looking for a use for the older 80 gig drive.
The second is if for some reason I am at some point forced to reinstall windows. It will be quick and painless as all my documents, games, drivers and utiltities etc. are located on other drives.
I also have located my pagefile off the system drive to a drive I consider tertiary that gets used for nothing else other than 'cold storage'.
All around it's a setup I've been using since I upgraded from xp to vista, and I've been generally happy with the results.

I still keep a 1tb drive in a fireproof safe with older and unreplaceable items on it, but this is generally the safest way I could come up with.
I leave a few basic utils on the system drive, but they are the smaller ones. Like malwarebytes and spybot, as well as the actual office suite. The docs are still stored on another drive though. As long as I remember to back up bookmarks every now and then a complete os crash is never a big deal. 2 hours at most to get back to where I was before hand.
Odds are I will be retiring the 80 gig drive quite soon, along with this motherboard, ram and cpu. I will keep this general drive config in the new system as well though.

This may not work as well for some people but since my games are mostly provided through steam If there are related registry settings or something steam will fix them to the fresh windows install the first time I launch the game.

 

[psychotron]

No go on the bottom DVI port, as soon as I plug in the HDMI Windows 7 freezes. If I install HDMI while pc if off the monitors fail to turn on. I have to assume it's a driver issue but I'm only guessing.

 

[stormy13]

Do you see the bios screen with both connected? If not then it is not a driver problem but a hardware problem (maybe), as the driver won't even have been loaded at that time.

If there is nothing in the manual about which combination of connections can be used, might be a good idea to contact XFX,

Support

and see what they have to say.

 

[psychotron]

Good idea, go straight to the source. I just registered at the XFX site and will ask around, they even have a support number during biz hours so I might do that as well. If I remember correctly the monitors didn't turn on at all, no text during start up. I will post the solution if one is found.

 

[Maguscreed]

certainly either motherboard or graphics if that's the case then. Usually you can check the mobo by yanking all the ram out and trying to power it on. ..Usually they don't like that and will beep or otherwise complain.
If you get nothing could be motherboard. Otherwise most likely graphics card failing to post.

 

[psychotron]

Found the solution Maguscreed, and it's almost, well it is embarrassing. The Asus monitors have a input button almost invisible to the naked eye right next to the power on button, one touch and the HDMI input displayed and the entire issue is solved. Default was DVI, then it goes HDMI then Composite. Wrong input and it cancels out all the other monitors and freezes windows. Like I told the XFX guy on live chat after I figured it out on my own, I need to read the manuals no matter how worthless they usually are. Another bump in the road passed, onto the next one that is sure to come.

 

[Maguscreed]

huh that's odd, I have a ASUS monitor too, doesn't have that apparently. It just auto-detects the source.

Anyhow, glad you got it settled.

 

[Fantail]

Interesting, my samsung auto detects, the nec does not.