Windows 7 LCD issue

I don't really expect to get an answer, but since I can't find anything at all on the web I figured it can't hurt.

My computer setup is a bit non standard, and I am having a problem with my monitors.

I am running Windows 7 x64, and I have 2 ATI x1650 graphics cards in the system. I do not run them in xfire mode, as I have 4 LCD monitors, so I needed to be able to use all 4 ports across the 2 video cards (xfire just combines processing power in the GPUs and you only get 2 usable ports)

So my issue is that when my screen blacks for whatever reason (could be when you get the UAC prompt, could be when I hit ctrl+alt+delete to lock my workstation, etc..) I lose my primary monitor. It just goes to power save mode. When this happens I am down to 3 LCD screens functioning. If I go into display properties, the monitor that I lost is now marked as disabled. I also can NOT re-enable it. It allows me to, it just has no affect. Or sometimes it will actually re-enable the monitor, however I then lose a different one. Bottom line is once this happens, I can NOT get 4 LCDs working again.

The work around so far is to log off windows. I was originally rebooting, but then I discovered that logging off re-enables all 4 monitors and everything is happy again. However logging off windows every hour or so is not really a solution.

To make matters harder to debug, it doesn't always happen, and there seems to be nothing different between it happening or not happening.

It is hard to say if the issue is the fault of Microsoft or ATI, but I don't really expect to get a solution out of either of them.

My guess would be ATI.

I have a dual monitor setup driven by an ATI card on Vista. After downloading a new driver a little while ago the second monitor comes up with bad settings sometimes, and on occasion 1 & 2 get reversed, or #2 ends up "above" #1 so it seems like the mouse can't get there, etc.

Sometimes I can do a Switch Users and just come back to the original user and it clears. Lots of popups about the driver crashing after coming out of Hibernate too.

I should revert the driver, but I'm hoping for a fix soon.

Given that you cant even extend your task bar to a second monitor without using 3rd party tools I wouldn't hold out hope for this!

I know that the given cards x1650 are done with driver revisions on ATIs side according to their site. So while I do have drivers that ARE for Win7, they were pretty clear they wouldn't be releasing any more updates. In fact I am using catalyst 9.3.

If I go to their site and do the drill down for what drivers I should use for x1650 cards under Win7 x64 it brings me to the 9.11 download page, however trying those drivers give me a blue screen when installing.

Dean, I use UltraMon anyway, which does give me that functionality.

does ultramon work on win7? I didnt think it did, I have a liscense for it but it didnt work right!

Run the 3.0.7 beta (if you have a license you can just download that from their site)

I have been running it on here for maybe 2 months now, without issue. (well obviously I have an monitor issue, but I don't think its related to ultramon).

3.0.7 beta is x64 compatible, right?

Yes. My system is Win7 x64 and I haven't had any issues (except the bug I reported to them today, which is that if I run 2 cmd.exe prompts as administrator, my system slows down and ultramon chews up resources) but so far that exact combo (2 cmd prompts, run as admin) is the only thing that is producing the bug.

why aren't you using catalyst control center? Install Hydravision. It's got a "span" option that treats both monitors as one huge one and it shows up that way in display properties. I have problems with the native monitor controls as well, but in vista. I can't get it to consistently enable my tv out.

The span option is terrible in my opinion. When your monitors are spanned and you maximize a window, the window takes up the entire screen, versus just one of my screens. I dont want to be working in Visual Studio, and maximize it, just so it can fill 4 screens and be nearly impossible to use.

I second this I tend to use my monitors as per application that way seems the most intuitive!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kleinma

The span option is terrible in my opinion. When your monitors are spanned and you maximize a window, the window takes up the entire screen, versus just one of my screens. I dont want to be working in Visual Studio, and maximize it, just so it can fill 4 screens and be nearly impossible to use.

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the drop-down options for hydravision let you customize this so it doesn't happen. I let it maximize across monitors on my system because they are touching, but i set the popups to appear on monitor one.