Secondary GPU turning off.

[DownTheSky]

I've got this problem on my rig. It has both nvidia and AMD graphic cards, more exactly 1xGF 460GTX that drives the display and 1xR9 290 I've bought for mining. How exactly it ended up like this, long story (PSU failure) but now I'd like to get it to work, not to waste time.

Everything up to date, Win7 x64.

My problem is Catalyst turning off my Radeon since it doesn't drive a display. AMD overdrive is greyed out and I've got no control over the card in any program, including CG miner. The card does actually put out the hashes but I don't have any temp/fan controls and the fan doesn't spin up. If I run it like this I'll probably end up frying it.

Pluging in the monitor on the Radeon, it powers up and the monitor turns on after a couple of seconds. Catalyst overdrive gets enabled. Probably everything else works too. Problem is I don't have 2 monitors to be driven by both cards. Using the monitor on 2nd card and leaving the nvidia alone kinda defeats the whole purpose so..
I need a software solution to prevent my secondary card (AMD) from going in "sleep mode". I remember reading somewhere sleep mode aka 3W mode being a rather recent feature of catalyst drivers.

Help? :\

 

[BrightCandle]

It might be windows. For a long time it hasn't been possible to have a graphics device without it being attached to a monitor output in some way. I can't remember whether it changes for vista or windows 8 but xp certainly can't do what you are describing.

 

[Shmee]

Have you tried MSI afterburner or sapphire trixx? Also, what driver version are you using?

 

[zir_blazer]

Considered purchasing a VGA Dummy or making one yourself? Its equivalent to have a Monitor connected to it.

 

[KingFatty]

I don't think you can solve this using software.

2 choices: make a dummy plug as mentioned above. Or, use a spare video cable to connect the AMD card to one of the other inputs of your display that is not active (set the monitor to use the input going to the NVidia card). That way the display itself will provide the "dummy" plug functionality, by connected to an unused input port of the display.