Three Monitors

philgons

New Member
I currently have two 22" Acer monitors running on a dual DVI MSI GeForce 7600GS on an EVGA 650i motherboard with one PCI Express x16 slot.

I'm getting a 28" Hanns G soon from New Egg. I was going to just replace one of the 22s with the 28 and give the other 22 to my wife to use with her laptop, but she said she doesn't really want it and told me to do a three monitor setup.

The problem is that I can't add another PCI Express card without getting a new motherboard, and I'd really rather not do that for now.

I thought that I could add a PCI (or a PCI Express x1) video card and run one of the monitors off of that, but I just read somewhere that the two video cards should be the same series. The only problem with that is that they don't make a 7000 series PCI video card.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Phil
 

TrainTrackHack

VIP Member
You only need two identical video cards if you SLI/crossfire them, for a multi-monitor setup you don't want SLI or crossfire, so getting a PCI graphics card (same series -or even manufacturer yadda yadda- or not, doesn't matter) card should be fine.
 

sniperchang

New Member
Great. Thanks. I'll give a plain old PCI card a try and see if it works.

It does happens sometimes cards aren't compatible in a multi-gpu environment, especially with really old PCI cards. My recommendation is you get another Nvidia card, as opposed to an ATI, to minimize the risk of incompatibility. And the newer the card, the more likely it will be fine. Any mix of Nvidia higher than GeForce 6200 is pretty much guarantied to work.
 

Langers2k7

New Member
just to buy other one.this is my opion.
you could try this website.

http://www.onvon.com/tft-lcd-monitors-c-21.html

there have some pictures .
Touch%20Screen1.jpg


hmm better life and better electronics

Omfg someone actually ban this creep, it's really getting on my nerves. "hmm better life and better electronics" psshh yeah f off.
 

philgons

New Member
Any mix of Nvidia higher than GeForce 6200 is pretty much guarantied to work.

Thanks for the advice. The problem is that I can't find a PCI card higher than 6200. Do they make them higher than that? The highest that NewEgg carries is 6200. Can you point me to a place I can get one?
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
If you're just looking to get another monitor, it should be an issue about performance (because that will go down the tubes). Have a look at the triplehead stuff, it uses your videocard to drive the screens so at least you dont need to worry about having multiple uber videocards per se
 

philgons

New Member
Have a look at the triplehead stuff, it uses your videocard to drive the screens so at least you dont need to worry about having multiple uber videocards per se

Don't all three monitors have to run at the same resolution? I'll be running the 2 22s at 1680x1050 and the 28 at 1920x1200. Is the Triple Head still an option?
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Dont know, all of mine are the same resolution as are all of those of my friends. Perhaps dualhead to go would work better by connecting the two 22s to the dualhead?
 

philgons

New Member
Any mix of Nvidia higher than GeForce 6200 is pretty much guarantied to work.

I see from your signature that you have a PCI GeForce 6200 card as your secondary card in a triple monitor setup. I'll give that a try. I thought you were suggesting that 6200 wouldn't work, but I'm guessing you meant 6200 or higher rather than higher than 6200. Thanks for your help.
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Something you should look at though... is to check the maximal resolution for your card... i know that some variations of 7200s/7300s dont support 1920x1200
 

sniperchang

New Member
I see from your signature that you have a PCI GeForce 6200 card as your secondary card in a triple monitor setup. I'll give that a try. I thought you were suggesting that 6200 wouldn't work, but I'm guessing you meant 6200 or higher rather than higher than 6200. Thanks for your help.

ya that's what a meant.

Okay. I just ordered the EVGA 6200 Video Card (256MB, PCI) from Frys.com. It had a $40 rebate, so it was the best deal I could find for a decent PCI card. I'm hoping it'll do the trick. Thanks for all the help.

Sweet, that's actually a very good deal. What you can do is put your bigger screen in the middle, and your smaller ones one the sides. Then you connect the 6200 to the side monitors, and you can use your main video card to run you bigger monitor for gaming. That's how I have mine setup.
 

philgons

New Member
Sweet, that's actually a very good deal. What you can do is put your bigger screen in the middle, and your smaller ones one the sides. Then you connect the 6200 to the side monitors, and you can use your main video card to run you bigger monitor for gaming. That's how I have mine setup.

Thanks. I'll give that a try. I was thinking about turning my 22s vertical, but they don't rotate and triple-monitor stands are pretty expensive! I think I'll just stick with all three at landscape for now.
 

philgons

New Member
Well, I got my 6200 and now have all three monitors running. (They barely fit on my desk!) But I'm pretty disappointed in the card's performance. The one monitor that I have hooked up to it via DVI is so much slower in responding than my other two. There's a huge lag time in simple things like typing or scrolling. Even moving a window around is noticeably slower. I've also seen some distortion on the screen several times. Did I get a bad card?

Can anyone recommend a stand that will hold three monitors (22 | 28 | 22)? I'd like to clear up some desk space.
 

sniperchang

New Member
Well, I got my 6200 and now have all three monitors running. (They barely fit on my desk!) But I'm pretty disappointed in the card's performance. The one monitor that I have hooked up to it via DVI is so much slower in responding than my other two. There's a huge lag time in simple things like typing or scrolling. Even moving a window around is noticeably slower. I've also seen some distortion on the screen several times. Did I get a bad card?

Can anyone recommend a stand that will hold three monitors (22 | 28 | 22)? I'd like to clear up some desk space.

Try reinstalling the Nvidia drivers. The 6200 should be able to run simple/2D applications smoothly.
 

philgons

New Member
Try reinstalling the Nvidia drivers. The 6200 should be able to run simple/2D applications smoothly.

I updated to the latest Nvidia driver, and the distortion is gone. I'm still disappointed with overall sluggishness in performance even for general things like moving and resizing windows, etc. But it'll be sufficient for now anyway.
 
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