Dual Monitor blues -- trying to set up with sy-k7via

[ImInGod]

I'm trying to use two monitors at the same time on my comp, which has a Soyo sy-k7via motherboard (amd). I've got two video cards in, an ati rage xl and an ati 3d rage pro, both pci. I know both cards work fine as I've tested them both individually; dido with the monitors. As of now both video cards appear in Windows Device Manager to be "working properly" -- no exclamation marks. I just enabled a bios setting, PCI/VGA Palette Snoop under pci/pnp configurations, per instructions in soyo's knowledge base, but still no luck. That seems to be the only bit of information soyo has regarding dual monitors.

The only logic I can find, from switching the cards/monitors around several times, is that the one monitor that works is always the monitor plugged into the video card that's in the higher PCI slot. E.g., if one card is in PCI slot 2 and the other's in PCI slot 5, the monitor plugged into the card in slot 2 will work. But, if I then pull out the card in slot 2 and leave the card in slot 5, the monitor plugged into the slot 5 card will then work on boot-up.

One weird thing -- in the Device Manager, BOTH monitors are listed as being on whichever video adapter is in the higher slot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

michael
michael.tashman@juno.com

 

[Uncle Bob]

As far as I know, you can't do it this way because the two video adapters will be competing for the same system resources, eg I/O Space. If you want to run two monitors of one pc, the easiest way to do it is with a dual head video card. A lot of the current AGP cards have dual head capability even at the budget end of the market - e.g ASUS V9520TD Gfx5200

http://usa.asus.com/products/vga/v9520td/overview.htm

 

[Jeffyboy]

It usually works with 2 video cards... I've had systems with 3 video cards working so It can be done but... I guess not always huh. Might be easier to get a newer video card with dual head ;-)

Jeff

 

[ImInGod]

Thanks Bob & Jeff for your suggestions. Since I posted, I have both determined that my motherboard was not, in fact, made by Soyo, and have also destroyed it. I have also ordered a PCChips motherboard from newegg to replace it -- and according to the manual, I can do dual monitors with this one w/o a dual-head adapter!

Thanks again.