HELP! How to set up 3-4 monitors in XP??

[daveybrat]

I've just built a new computer for a customer with an MSI 965 Platinum motherboard that has 1 pci-e x16 slot and another x16 slot that runs at x4. I have 2 XFX 7300GT video cards in the machine that are not in SLI, they are just there to be able to run 3-4 monitors for financial software. Trouble is, windows only shows 2 monitors under display settings. I tried removing that card and installed a pci radeon 7000 card and get the same thing. How do people get multiple cards working under windows??

 

[Matthias99]

Are both cards set up properly and with the latest drivers installed?

Each 'head' should show up as a display under Control Panel / Desktop / Settings once the video cards are properly configured. There isn't really anything special you have to do.

Edit: Also make sure you're NOT in 'spanned' mode in the NVIDIA drivers; that will make each card look like one huge monitor that is twice as wide as normal. Unless you want that mode, of course.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Are both cards set up properly and with the latest drivers installed?

Each 'head' should show up as a display under Control Panel / Desktop / Settings once the video cards are properly configured. There isn't really anything special you have to do.

Edit: Also make sure you're NOT in 'spanned' mode in the NVIDIA drivers; that will make each card look like one huge monitor that is twice as wide as normal. Unless you want that mode, of course.

have you ever had 3 or 4 monitors running before or are you speculating? I too 'thought' that's what should show up, but it doesn't. And i always use the latest drivers. The only card that supposedly supports quad monitors properly is the ATI FireMV card. But $450??, come on!!

 

[Matthias99]

have you ever had 3 or 4 monitors running before or are you speculating?

I have not personally done it, but I've seen it set up and never heard of having to do anything else. THG had an article a while back where they ran four PCIe cards on a motherboard with four PCIe x16 slots and had eight monitors without a problem. AFAIK it should just work.

If you have only one card installed, do you see two displays? Start with the basics here.

 

[aka1nas]

My Boss' machine has 3 monitors working just fine in a similar setup.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
My Boss' machine has 3 monitors working just fine in a similar setup.

Do you know his hardware configuration? Anything would be helpful

I'm thinking maybe of replacing the second pci-e card with a pci card, any better luck?

 

[SolMiester]

Is the card that in the 4x slot showing up?, start with that 1 1st, as the previous poster advise, you should see both head in the device manager.