dual video not working right

[electronicsfreak]

Yes I posted this thread in video and it wasnt getting anything so thought id post it in here lol. Sorry for the double posting but would like to find an answer to this.

Ok ive been trying to run dual monitor such as having desktop on one monitor and like say put messenger on another however ive not been able to get it to work right. Ive managed to split the screens up via horizontal or vertical. Can clone just fine as well. In fact cloning is what it does and stays at when I try running dual screen like the wizard says. I even upgraded the nvidia drivers to see if that would fix it. It is still doing it.

Both monitors are crt. One is a brand new 17 inch viewsonic while the secondary is an old monitor but good enough for crap task like messenger talking and handling the resolution of 1024x768. Viewsonic monitor is running via vga while other is running dvi to vga converter. Both are connected to the same card.

System specs are 1.9GHz amd athlon xp, 1 gig of ram dual channel. 80GB hard drive space, aopen agp 8x 128MB geforce4 mx 4000 video card.

Anyone have any idea what im doing wrong? Any tips or hints on anything lol?

Thanks

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[cdogg]

Where are you messing with settings? I'm assuming you're using the nView (Nvidia) utility to make changes to the desktop? If so, then there should be an option in there to "extend" the desktop. If there isn't, describe to us the steps you have taken to configure the desktop in Windows XP (which again, I'm assuming you have).

I haven't messed with it in a while, but I remember finding a lot of info on Nvidia's site last time I came across a problem like this. It wouldn't hurt to comb their FAQs, manuals, and forums out there.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well I honestly did not think about it although that should have been obvious lol. As for settings yes ive used nvidia desktop profile wizard, also tried using the extend desktop feature and neither have worked. Im starting to think the card does not support it. By the way im using windows 2000 pro sp4 not windows xp, sorry.

Settings ive tried, right click desktop left click properties, then click settings. Now click advanced to bring up nvidias control ,now click desktop management on the white window beside their controls. Then click display wizard, now choose custom setup, primary display is my viewsonic, then secondary is the old monitor. Now this is where I select dual view yet when it applies im still doing clone.

Now I have noticed a couple of screwy things. One in device manager it shows I have around 8 monitors installed yet I have only isntalled 2. Second off it seems to think both monitors are the exact same when they are not. I can uninstall the monitors to where only 2 are on device manager, however next time I restart it they all come back.

Another thing, I havent checked with the new driver but on the old one where you can right click on the nvidia properties on taskbar, it had monitor 1 and monitor 28. How in the world it got to 28 ive yet to figure out.

Another screwy thing after the wizard, even if both monitors are cloning each other I can take my mouse and move it completely off screen, and its acting like its going to another monitor that I cant see. Reason I know this I can get a feel of how far it is as how many times I have to scroll the trackball to get it back on my screen.

If you need any more info let me know.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well I have figured out something and heres an update on things. I have figured out the card thinks display one is both monitors while display 2 I guess is a ghost monitor lol. As I can adjust it all day long and it not change anything. Display 1 I change and it changes both monitors.

Also went through faq's on nvidia but found none that were helpful so I posted a question there similar to here. So just waiting on a response from there as well so that I can hopefully get this solved.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[skiflyer]

Ooof, that's odd.

You can disable those "ghost" monitors and see if that helps... I can also tell you from my last week dealing with tech support that the NVidia drivers do not handle DVI->VGA adapters properly after 3 monitors, but it doesn't screw them up in the manner you're suggesting, it just goes blank.

This is likely going to be hard to diagnose over forums, but I'd suggest looking into the following

1) Video Adapters (i.e. cards) how many of these does Windows think you have installed?
2) Superflous drivers... find a driver cleaning program and uninstall all of them and let Windows re-install the defaults, then re-install the NVidia drivers
3) Does your primary monitor support DVI? Try hooking up directly to the DVI & VGA ports instead of using the adapter... I know this shouldn't matter at all, since DVI-D (or is it I? I can't keep all the acronyms straight) is supposed to be an analog pass-thru, but it does.

Avail yourself of tech support from the card manufacturer, most are pretty good if painfully slow.

WARNING: There're several internet posts around (and I've experienced it myself), where tinkering with multiple versions of the NVidia drivers causes Windows to hang on a "Please wait..." screen, and not be at all recoverable... SO BACKUP!

 

[electronicsfreak]

This just keeps getting more and more strange. I tried the switching of the monitors, like putting my main one on dvi converter and the other on the vga port. Noticed something odd that I thought just was the old monitor. Turns out whichever monitor I connect to the dvi to vga converter , gets the blue tint over it. Not sure why either.

As for disabling the monitors lol it doesnt give me an option for that.

As for either monitor supporting dvi, no, thats why im using the converter.

As for dispaly adapters, when im running one monitor it just shows my video card however when im running 2 it shows nvidia dual display and my graphics card. So any other suggestions lol?

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[cdogg]

I'm still pretty sure that the answers you need are on Nvidia's website or in your product manual. At a quick glance out at Nvidia's site, I found the following in the Nview Desktop Manager manual:

http://www.geocities.com/ckmusic5/

The complete manual is here:

http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/91.31/91.31_ForceWare_nView_User_Guide.pdf

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[electronicsfreak]

My card did not have one of the options needed for this so that explains why im unable to do anything with what im trying to do. My card does not support it lol. Thanks though.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[cdogg]

According to the main product page for the Nvidia MX cards (main page), it does. The following link off that page shows that in detail:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_20020204_8254.html

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well ive been reading the stuff but nothing seems to help. Ill go through in detail every page tommorow in the manual after homework is done and see where I get. So far everything ive tried has not worked and the one page that has the pics saved , one of the options they have showed is not on my properties. So we will see. I do appreciate the help given so far very much so.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well I followed the book like it said and it did not work. Used the wizard did not work. Nothing I do works lol. Nvidia still has not replied to my question and I have searched there forum base. So I really have no clue what else to do. I even tried removing the drivers and reinstalling them. So im at a loss of what to do.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[firewolfrl]

I have had issues with Nvidia chipset cards before for my clients... some of my clients do alot of audio/video. your problem is not a new problem for the Geforce style chipset... especially if it is a low end card.
first thing to try is to test as the second monitor one that closely matches the primary monitor.

second you have to call the Video card manufacturer. some of the cards have custom programs that work well with their card...the generic nvidia may not see some of the custom stuff on the card.

does the windows allow you to extend desktop settings when you click on the second monitor????
I saw you are using a wizard...try the windows setting instead
I pesonally like the ATI chipset for dual monitor.

 

[electronicsfreak]

Yes windows has the option for extending and it is checked yet doesnt change anything lol. Have already tried windows setting as well and did not work. Im using an msi kt880 motherboard.

Did notice something strange when I was probing for the about information that nvidia requested on my question and found something else before I found the version of it.

"rundll32, this application does not support application position memory properly. Application position memory has been disabled for this application".

That is what it says when I click the top left corner of the nvidia desktop manager program, then click nview options, then about this ap.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[Nelviticus]

Just a thought, but are you sure that that card has enough memory to do what you want? 'Dual' view uses up twice as much gfx memory as 'clone' view and a 128MB card might not have enough of it to handle two 1024 x 768 displays. Try reducing the resolution or the colour depth.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[electronicsfreak]

Already tried that, original it was on 800 x 600 and still didnt work. Im just thinking somethings wrong with that part of the card. When I have time and break from school im just going to install my other video card with it and just use two video cards.

Appreciate the suggestion though.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[skiflyer]

1024 * 768 * 32 = ~24Mb = ~4MegaBytes of Video ram * 2 = 8MB video ram, even the most modest dual head cards can usually handle that.

I'm betting on some kind of driver/OS interface issue, like the fact that NVidia cards with a split DVI/VGA output can't handle adapters on 2+ cards on XP and will crash UBUNTU's kernel setup on the live CD... the authors of the drivers are so busy squeaking out every last bit of performance on very specific setups they occassionally manage to overlook some pretty "normal" usage scenarios.

Just for the record tho, have you tried do a complete driver removal/re-install with the most current? I recently have been having serious driver issues and driver upgrades/downgrades wreaked havok on my system, whereas a remove/install worked fine.

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well the driver removal tool I had only worked if you bought it so I havent had anything to completely remove all traces of the driver. When I have more time ill try updating my motherboard drivers although im not quite sure how they would affect it considering the information that im adjusting has to do strictly with video card. Anymore though willing to try anything as nothing seems to work with this card. Tried about everything I can possibly think of just about with it. Not sure why my end is having so much problem when everyone else seems to have no problem with it lol.

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[skiflyer]

Cause we're all running XP and while I'm not familar with Win2k's approach, I know Microsoft spent some time doing multi-headed systems right in XP.

 

[telebob2]

Dude,
same thing happened to me after installing latest Nvidia
Nview software. (sep 2006 release)
the application position is forgotten in the monitors that arent the primary.
to get out of it i disabled all Nview features.that fixed it.
when u dbl click on Nview from control panel(i have that option)
there is a box that says disable Nview features.click the box.
reboot
u should be OK

 

[attrofy]

This card will support two monitors - I had a similar setup only running 5 monitors off of 3 of the MX cards (two PCI and one AGP). I was however running XP and it went quite smoothly.

However, I would second telebob2's reccomendations. The Nvidia drivers caused the most problems, and I was never able to get them to properly work until a later driver release. My resolution was to remove the Nvidia drivers, and let the system detect everything, then instal the bare minimum Nvidia drivers to get proper hardware recognition.

As for the blue tint, be sure that your monitor cable is rated for SVGA. You can (or could) purchase VGA cables, but it would distort the view on anything over 15" crt monitors. It has been years since I had to deal with this issue (or the dual monitor setup too) but this was a very real condern - especialy for cords over 3' long. It used to be the SVGA cables were over double the cost of the VGA - but things may have changed - been too long since I have had to wory about CRT's - sorry.