Multiple Monitor Video Card Solution for XP

Personally, I think you got bad advice.  It is tough enough getting one dual-monitor AGP card to work with a single PCI VGA, it will be a struggle to get it to work with a PCI dual, which are rare.  To see how rare, search for that on the net and you will find an ATI and a few others with the NForce set, but there are lots of compatibility issues.  I don't know of one that will work with a dual-VGA AGP.

Basically, when you get more than 2 monitors, it's time to get 2 computers to spread among 4 monitors.  Why put all your eggs in one basket?  That HDD or MB dies, you are toast.  But if you have another MB with a cloned HDD setup, now you have some failsafe redundancy, and you can still run all montiors, but you can work 2x as fast, with 2 computers, than you can with one.  I run 3 computers using 4 monitors most of the time, and I am getting done more work than a roomful of people.  As I said, I think you got bad advice, but that's just my opinion.

Good luck

I would return that video card also and  get a matrox parhelia that has triple monitor support and then get a pci video card for your fourth.

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/home.cfm

They even play games.

Now that's a novel idea, I didn't know they had triple monitor cards.
If yuo can do that, it might work.  The reason is, PCI cannot correctly arbitrate device sharing within a single slot, although the PCI bus can.  Therefore, a PCI will work fine as a separate SINGLE VGA output, but will have troubles arbitrating dual monitors on a single card -- for the most part.  As long as the PCI is a single VGA, it should work.

Thanks for your thoughts.

One of the sites I got ideas from was
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon

A couple of the configurations there are as follows:

Config 6620, submitted by Fender on Nov 5, 2004
WinXP, 4 monitors, 2 video cards
P4 2.4
Card 1:
AGP, Nvidia GeForce 4 MX440 chipset
No problems
Card 2:
PCI Matrox Millenium G450 Dualhead
No problems

Config 6568, submitted by exe on Oct 17, 2004
WinXP, 4 monitors, 3 video cards
P4 1.6, Abit IT7 (Intel845E chipset), 512ram, Seagate Barracuda IV HD.
Card 1:
AGP Matrox Millenium P650, Matrox P650 chipset
WHQL Drivers with Portrait display to rotate. Dual DVI driving Samsung 191T's.
Card 2:
PCI ATI 7000, ATI Radeon 7000 chipset
DVI driving running 3rd Samsung 191T.
Card 3:
PCI ATI 7000, ATI Radeon 7000 chipset
DVI running 4th Samsung 191T


Config 6562, submitted by arbi on Oct 15, 2004
WinXP, 6 monitors, 3 video cards
Remote Desktop control of multiple PCs.
Card 1:
AGP ATI RADEON 9800 PRO, ATI RADEON 9800PRO chipset
No problems
Card 2:
PCI, ATI RADEON 9200 chipset
No problems
Card 3:
PCI, ATI RADEON 9200 chipset
No problems


Guys, I am probably revealling my ignorance here, but just wondering why these AGP/PCI setups work and why I cant use the same setup?

Thanks again for your help.

You can!   Just sometimes setting up multiple monitors can be tricky.  Any combination dual head agp and dual head pci card will work.  I recommend using the same brand cards though.

Ok, brilliant.

SO given I have the RADEON 9600XT AGP working beautifully presently as a dual monitor setup, I woud like to keep that. I have read some good reviews on the Matrox products, including your suggestions about the Parhelia. Just wondering if there is a cheaper solution that the Parhelia (for me quoted at around 300 euros or us$500).

ie something like the Matrox Millenium G450 PCI 32mB?
http://shopmatrox.com/europe/products/datasheet.asp?ID=240

Would this be suitable? I know it does not fit with your suggestion about the same brand cards. You would suggest I get something like the ATI PCI Radeon 7500, which would match the Radxeon 9600 I already have?

The only reason I mentioned using the same brand is that XP can run both cards using the same driver.  But no big deal.  The matrox  G450 would be fine.  If you don't mind me asking what are you planning on doing with a 4 screen setup?  it's intriguing.

Tim

I am a private trader, running up to 20 -40 real time java windows most days. The backwards and forwards between windows was becoming very frustrating, and also very unproductive.

I am not the most techie guy but your help has been invaluable. I will allocate you the points, but I want to leave this open for a couple of days until I get the new card and do the install. THanks again Cheers Paul

Wow... Cool, I'd want more monitors too!

If you need any help with the install and configuration just let us know, that's what we're here for.

Tim

Hi there, back again. So a quick summary before I start. I am trying to set up a 4 monitor (4x 17") system with my XP system.

I have two video cards. ALready running is the RADEON 9600XT AGP working beautifully presently as a dual monitor setup.

I received the Matrox Millennium G450 Dual Head PCI video card today. I installed it. Then loaded the drivers but so farI am only seeing the two monitors running on the RADEON and one other monitor running on the Matrox Card. The other monitor that is supposed to be running on the matrox card is currently blank for some reason. Whenever I reboot it simply powers up and then seems to go into a power down mode.

The configuration should be

3          4    Matrox
1          2    Radeon

Currently monitor 4 is blank. In the display properties I can currently see only 1, 2 and 3. 3 is configured for the Matrox. At one stage the Matrox card seem to find the monitor 4, but then wanted a specific configuration in terms of 1026x1080 for both monitors. At that stage monitor 4 briefly appeared, but only the left hand side. When I played with the screen config it disappeared and I have not been able to get it back.

Any ideas? Thanks

you need to go to the properties for the matrox card and initilize the second monitor. I will try to find the solution from matrix.   I'm not very savvy with matrox card drivers so I have to do some research.

Tim

Thanks Tim, Just something I have noticed is that in the Device Manager Display Adaptors the Radoen card is showing 2 items, the Radeon 9600 series and the Radeon 9600 Series - Secondary. FOr the Matrox card I only have 1 display adapter listed, the Matrox Millenium G450 Dual Head DVI PCI. Not sure if this points in the right direction.

Yes Ati list their drivers twice.  I believe it's one for each head.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  Nvidia and Matrox drivers do not work that way and only list once in device manager.

OK, you have now got the other monitor working thankyou. Only problem is that I am having trouble with the screen placement in the display properties.

At the moment, I cant use the mouse to go directly from one screen to the other. I have to do the inverse ie. to get back to the bottom right screen (primary) I have to go completely left as is if off the screen to get back to the bottom right. I cant go directly there.

Something I have noticed is that SCREEN 3 (bottom right) is my primary monitor but is called "secondary' in the display listing. Does this make any sense?

OK, things have now gone horribly wrong.

I got a dialogue message saying 'the currently selected display driver can not be used. It was written for a previous version of windows and is no longer compatible. Get updated driver."

Also, the only monitors showing in display properties are the matrox ones, and one of them is  greyed out. The two ATI have gone missing!

Reboot you may have a glitch.   If you gotta use system restore and restore back to yesterday

Tim You were right about the glitch. Things are running as they should now. I will let it be for a while to make sure that nothing goes wrong, but defintely looking good now with no mouse issues etc. Thanks again for all your effort/thoughts/ideas/research. Cheers Paul

That sure makes me smile.   It's very hard to get such a multiple monitor rig working as expected I want to compliment you on doing a good job following the procedures.

Hope all  stays well.

and remember sometimes a simple reboot does the job.

Tim

Thank you very much again Paul

Good luck

Tim