Trouble activating a third monitor?

mfaklis

New Member
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What is the root problem I'm having and a workable solution for connecting a 3rd monitor to a Win 8.1 Pro x64 desktop?

My primary desktop has a ATI Radeon HD 46000 Series display adapter with 1 gb or onboard dedicated video memory. I have a HP w2338h LCD monitor (1920x1080) as my primary on HDMI. I have a Dell s2404W (Digital, 1920x1080) across from me for watch videos on DVI. It's defined as extended desktop. Now I connected a ViewSonic VA2012wb (1680x1050) on to VGA 15-pin. This third monitor is intended to be vertical for reading, leaving my primary monitor available to work on. Unfortunately I seem to be limited to have just two monitors active at a time. A third monitor must become disabled.

Can anyone explain what brick wall I seem to be hitting with a third monitor? The adapter has three monitor connectors and I don't recall reading anything about being limited to two (of three) at once.

If it's a limitation of the adapter, can I get all three monitors active if I place the third monitor on another video adapter, preferable a USB3-based adapter?

I'm running Win 8.1 Pro x64 on an ASUS P6 X58-E WS motherboard with a Xeon 5600 6-core processor. I currently have 13gb of memory.

Thank you in advance for any insights.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WIndows 8 Pro
Go to Control Panel > Display > Adjust Resolution. Does it show 3 monitors or 2? Some video cards will make you use a DVI to VGA adapter to connect a VGA monitor. And some will just put a VGA connector next to the DVI connector and feed them both from the same source. How many video connectors are on that card and what type are they?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Education 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard
    Memory
    8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe
    Sound Card
    VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake TR 620
    Case
    Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless K350 Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad
    Internet Speed
    80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
The adapter card (pcie v2.0) has three connectors (DVA, HDMI, VGA-15 pin). All three monitors are shown in the adjust resolution applet, but the VGA-newly-attached-monitor is disabled. Using either the adjust resolution applet or the Radeon Catalyst utility, activating any 3rd monitor results in one of the other monitors to be disabled.
I found nothing in the ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series display adapter documentation indicating only 2 of the 3 monitor connections may be activated.

My reading of the ATI CrossfireX technology tells me that connecting a 2nd adapter in this manner merely adds horsepower to the primary adapter. I am not a gamer, so I wonder if a USB video adapter is good enough, or do I need to add another video adapter?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WIndows 8 Pro
If it only supported 2 monitors I would have expected only 2 to be shown in the adjust resolution screen? How big are these screens? Maybe it has a maximum combined display width or something. If you have another PCIe slot you can add in another video card. You don't have to use Crossfire if you don't want to. If you go non crossfire you can use just about any video card you want in the second slot and it should work. I'd use anther ATI/AMD card just to make things easier driver wise.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Education 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard
    Memory
    8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe
    Sound Card
    VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake TR 620
    Case
    Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless K350 Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad
    Internet Speed
    80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
The two older monitors are both 1920x1080. The third monitor is 1680x1050. There is 1gb of dedicated memory on the adapter. Mailing out the memory sounds reasonable because I can get any 2 of the 3 monitors activated. My motherboard manual states that using ATI CrossfireX to connect the two adapters only leaves the primary adapter's ports working, so I read that as adding memory and GPUs for more horsepower to the primary adapter's ports.

By not addressing it, are you suggesting I stay away from USB3 video adapters?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WIndows 8 Pro
The two older monitors are both 1920x1080. The third monitor is 1680x1050. There is 1gb of dedicated memory on the adapter. Mailing out the memory sounds reasonable because I can get any 2 of the 3 monitors activated. My motherboard manual states that using ATI CrossfireX to connect the two adapters only leaves the primary adapter's ports working, so I read that as adding memory and GPUs for more horsepower to the primary adapter's ports.

By not addressing it, are you suggesting I stay away from USB3 video adapters?

You can also run two identical ATI cards in Crossfire which does as you say, it adds to the performance of the one card. But if you run two cards and don't crossfire them you can connect displays to both cards. You could run 4 or even 6 displays this way. Depending on the cards installed. CrossfireX is variation on that. Have you tried connecting one of your monitors to your motherboards video connector. I think CrossfireX will let you do that.

I have never used a USB video adapter so I am hesitant to recommend one. I think you'll find that adding a second video card is cheaper and will preform better.

I have 3 monitors, a 22" 1920 x 1080p LG E2242T-BN Flat Panel and 2 19" 1280x1024 I-INC AG191D TFT Flat Panels, connected to a NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 PCIe card with 2 GB of onboard RAM. HDMI-DVI-DVI. I didn't know it would do 3 monitors until I tried it. The manual didn't say one way or the other, it just said it supported multiple displays.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Education 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard
    Memory
    8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe
    Sound Card
    VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake TR 620
    Case
    Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless K350 Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad
    Internet Speed
    80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
My motherboard has no on board video. I believe Win 8.1 Pro is limited to 6 monitors, but I did not verify that article.

I know I have had 4 monitors on my XP Pro laptop, which I still need to download my diabetes glucose log. That Dell c840 laptop supported the lid's monitor, and an external VGA monitor. With the CDock/2 I have two additional video cards to drive the two other monitors.

I know that the HD 4600 series is not certified for Windows 8. My motherboard has a PCIe v2.0 bus, and since I'd rather invest in the future I'll look for a PCI2 v3 video adapter that will run on the PCIe v2.0 bus, and is supported on Windows 8.1. I'm running a virtual copy of Win 10 Pro x64, so I won't have an opportunity to test the adapter drive on Windows 10 for a while.

A USB 3.0 video adapter is tempting for the ease of moving it to other machines. Many that I've seen have USB 3,0/2.0 hubs with 1 or 2 video connectors and another LAN adapter.

I have a plethora of motherboards, but using Hyper-V cuts my electricity bill. I am using two identical (hardware) machines with the ASUS P6 X58-E WS motherboard allowing me to test a virtual data center on a virtual network. My older motherboards are mounted on the wall as an art project showing the evolution of hardware. I even have some core memory.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WIndows 8 Pro
OK, the mention of CrossfireX threw me off a bit. CrossfireX will let you add a card and still use your onboard if it has one. I think it does anyway. Doesn't matter if you don't have onboard video though. I don't have any other suggestions at this point.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Education 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard
    Memory
    8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe
    Sound Card
    VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake TR 620
    Case
    Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless K350 Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad
    Internet Speed
    80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
ATI CrossfireX ( that "X" parameter ) is meant for Amd APU to work as ordinary Crossfire with a compatible GPU so that would not help you any. Only AMD video cards with "Eyefinity" feature would let you use 3 monitors with different standards at the same time. You could also get a cheap (since it's only for reading) PCIe video card with VGA out, don't have to connect them to each other. There are also very cheap adapters that would let you use the power of your primary GPU but you need a monitor with "Display port".
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
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