2 Questions about DVI

6

6MonitorTrader

New Member
Can anyone tell me, from experience, is there any risk to connecting or disconnecting a DVI cable from the computer while it's running? Can I just yank it in or out the way we can with most USB devices? Or do you have to shutdown and power off?

Second, does anyone have experience with having a DisplayPort output on a video card, and using a DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter to connect to a LCD that has only DVI in? If you have, can you tell me whether I will get a full quality image or a degraded image due to the adapter? Is it just rewiring pins or is it doing some form of video conversion?

I ask because I'm about to buy a Radeon 5750 card which provides 2 DVI and 1 DisplayPort, and I want to use the adapter so that it can drive 3 DVI displays at 1920x1080 each.

So far, not finding these answers anywhere else. Thanks in advance.
 
joh06937

joh06937

New Member
you can go ahead and yank it out. displayport will give you the same quality. BUT if you are planning on using eyefinity you have to use a displayport panel with a native displayport input. otherwise you will only be able to use two monitors.
 
6

6MonitorTrader

New Member
joh06937 said:
you can go ahead and yank it out. displayport will give you the same quality. BUT if you are planning on using eyefinity you have to use a displayport panel with a native displayport input. otherwise you will only be able to use two monitors.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help. But I'm not sure if eyefinity is a non-issue for me or is a major problem I've overlooked. I'll read up on eyefinity before I buy, but I'll also describe my setup in case someone is able to clear it up for me:

I'm setting up a 6-monitor trading station so that I will have 6 independent displays running various trading applications at 1920x1080 on all six. All the monitors have DVI only. I'm about to purchase 2 of the Sapphire VaporX Radeon HD5750 video cards, which provide 2 DVI out and one DisplayPort out on each card, and I will use a DisplayPort to DVI adapter on that output since my LCDs have only DVI in. So if it works as planned I then have 6 DVI outputs driving 6 displays at 1080 res without having to buy special DisplayPort equipped LCD panels.

So my question for you is, will that work as expected? Or would the Eyefinity issue (that I don't quite understand yet) make my 6 displays not work? I'm a trader, not a gamer, so if this Eyefinity limitation is something that would only be a problem during games, then I'd be OK. Or are you saying something worse, that if I proceed as planned I will simply flat out end up with only 4 displays working, and 2 black?

I really appreciate your helping me potentially avert disaster in configuring this system. Thanks!
 
joh06937

joh06937

New Member
it will work you just have to make sure you get an "active" adapter (they almost always have some sort of power supply, usually usb). the only problem is they have be wuite spendy. i think the cheapest i have seen them would be around $80 or so. displayport monitors can be a bit expensive as well. good ones run about $200 (again, as cheap as i have seen them). this is the only real downfall of eyefinity. also make sure the displays are all the same resolution. eyefinity will not allow monitors to be run at different resolutions. it will only run at a specific one which means the "odd" monitors will also run at the set resolution which can look weird. but if all monitors are the same resolution then you are good to go.
 
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