Dual VGA/HDMI displays on Asus M3N78 Pro w/onboard GeForce 8300

[gredhead]

I have a system with Asus M3N78 Pro mobo with onboard GeForce 8300 graphics. I have a viewsonic A90f as main display, on mobo VGA, 1280 x 1024, and a sony tv attached to HDMI as second display, on mobo HDMI, 1920 x 1080.

But when I switch the tv to the HDMI input, all that shows is the desktop background, no icons, no taskbar, no windows, even media player playing a video file full screen.

Updated the nvidia drivers, same result. Nvidia help is no help. Any guidance or suggestions?

 

[nenforcer]

Did you go to the nVidia Control Panel -> Setup Multiple Displays and make sure that the second display is setup to be at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz?

Can you run the Sony TV as the main display by itself with the full desktop and no problems?

 

[gredhead]

Yes, I have been using the nvidia control panel, and have updated to the latest driver/control panel.

I changed to "duplicate displays" and then they both show the entire desktop and all open windows.

But there are two other issues. The display on the TV is much smaller than the physical tv size, and now three times the nvidia control panel has crashed with a windows message that it has stopped working and must be closed. Yet, the driver/control panel is the latest.

thanks for your help

 

[nenforcer]

When you "duplicate" displays you are running the TV at the same resolution as the computer monitor, which is only 1280 x 1024.

This is why it looks so tiny on the TV, with the black borders all around.

You don't want to duplicate, or clone displays, you want 2 seperate displays.

Can you try running the TV as the only display device connected and see if you can get the full 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz resolution?

 

[nenforcer]

Also, how much memory have you dedicated to the GF8300 onboard video in the BIOS?

You would want to max it out, at least 256MB if not 512MB.

 

[gredhead]

OK, went back to separate displays, with TV main display, TV has everything, all icons, all windows, but is still small, although tv resolution is set to 1920 x 1080. And now the viewsonic just has the desktop wallpaper and nothing else - like the tv with the viewsonic set as main display.

Went back to separate with the viewsonic as main display, and now the tv just has the desktop wallpaper, and the viewsonic has the icons and icons. But now, when I click on an icon in task bar for minimized window, the window expands up to the tv, not the viewsonic.

Whats more, without changing anything in tv, just sending computer to hdmi and selecting the hdmi input, after going back to regular tv, the tv doesn't display right on the tv, with dark bands above and below the actual tv image.

Even though it seems I'm taking 2 steps back for every one forward, I go to the BIOS and the only parameter I see is "frame buffer size", which is set to 256MB and greyed out. To be able to change it, I have to change "iGPU frame buffer control" to manual from auto. But it says this is for hybrid SLI function, and I thought SLI was to use two graphics cards together, with a ribbon cable connecting them on the top? I haven't tried changing that yet.

And almost everytime I open nvidia control panel, after I change something (which is successful), the control panel crashes with a windows "stopped working, will close" message.

It's amazing how much time computers can suck down, and how much time people are willing to spend trying to help strangers - thanks.