Hi - wondering if anyone can help me on this or point me to a tech forum.
I am trying to set up 3 monitors on my gateway GT5694 desktop pc. I have an nvidia 9400 Gt PCI Express 2.0 graphics video card, that works great for a dual monitor setup. I have tried to connect a third monitor to my nvidia PCI fx 5200 graphics video card. When I do this my Gateway only recognizes the third monitor. When I go into device manager in windows Vista both adapters are shown but with exclamation points. Also there are no monitors shown. I tried to install the drivers for each adapter from disk to no avail. When I click on display properties on the third monitor, it shows just one monitor and an error for improper ATI device pops up. How can I get the two video cards to work together properly?
I ran into this problem before. The issue was the motherboard could not handle two cards. One computer I was able to fix it by going into the BIOS and selecting either AGP or PCI as the primary video graphics adapater. (Long long time ago now cant really remember the details.)
Try a different PCI slot, dont use the one nearest the PCI 2.0. I think they may share the same resources.
I believe you cannot use a PCI-Express and a PCI slot simultaneously for graphics. Something in the motherboard prevents this. But I am not a super-techie, so sorry I can’t give you a more concrete answer than that. I am using 3 monitors, but both my video cards are in PCI-Express slots.
Have you tried putting the video card in the other PCI slot and seeing if that works?
You mention exclamation points for both your video drivers, do you mind doing this…
Go to Device Manager.
Right-click on each video card under Display Adapters.
Select Properties.
Click on Resources tab.
Is there anything under conflicting devices list?
Take out your secondary video card, does your PCI Express card work properly (with no exclamation points) as the sole video card?
Now take out your PCI Express card, and install your PCI video card, and try to boot up Windows. Does that work fine? (no exclamation points?)
I’m thinking it’s either a motherboard/BIOS issue such as an IRQ conflict or a Windows driver issue…
But I won’t know until I get the answers to the questions above.
Also I noticed the specs say your system uses an integrated video card aka “crappy video card that’s attached on your motherboard that can only run CoD on 640x480 resolution”
Did you remember to disable that in BIOS?
If you’re using a PCI Express video card, in order for Windows to see that as your main display adapter, you have to disable the integrated video card in BIOS.
If you don’t know how to get into BIOS…
For most Gateway computers, to enter the BIOS Setup Utility, turn on the computer, and then immediately start pressing the F1 key at one-second intervals until the BIOS Setup Utility starts.
If that don’t work, turn on the computer, and then immediately start pressing the F2 key at one-second intervals.
Just to follow up on this, my wife finally got it to work. First - there’s no way we wanted to go into the bios, or I probably wouldn’t be able to write this right now. The two graphics cards would not fit in the computer - too wide to go next to each other, so we took them back and purchased two USB Display Converters. They work well. If I did it right, you’ll see the pic I posted. Thanks for helping me get through this.
I run all different sizes doesn’t matter I use it on a 42 inch LCD tv as well as my 22 wide Monitors all at the same time 3 external and the one internal screen
Like Ken said, mine are different too. The middle one is a Gateway and the other two are Acers. One of the guys we talked to at the computer store said if you’re doing it with video cards, it’s better to use all the same brand, but I’m not sure if that is true.
The two graphics cards would not fit in the computer - too wide to go next to each other, so we took them back and purchased two USB Display Converters. They work well. If I did it right, you’ll see the pic I posted. Thanks for helping me get through this.
