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Windows 8 and 3 monitors
Mark Allanson - 11/8/13 at 12:17 PM

Having got windows 8 running on a SSD, I am now trying to get 3 monitors running, the motherboard has one monitor port (RS232) and the graphics card has 2 (DVI).

The monitors on the DVI's work fine but I cannot get the third one to run from the motherboard. It won't detect in the display settings.

Any ideas?

GeForce GTX 260
Acer M3400 motherboard

stevebubs - 11/8/13 at 12:25 PM

Disabled in BIOS?

Slimy38 - 11/8/13 at 12:26 PM

RS232? The 25 pin parallel connection that has been mostly replaced by USB?

Some motherboards switch off their own card when they detect an external card. It might be worth taking a look in the BIOS to see if it is possible.

stevebubs - 11/8/13 at 12:35 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
RS232? The 25 pin parallel connection that has been mostly replaced by USB?


[pedant]RS232 is a serial port available in 9 or 25 pins varieties (dual row or pins). Parallel port was something entirely different[/pendant]

(I was assuming he was referring to a VGA port...

[Edited on 11/8/13 by stevebubs]

Mark Allanson - 11/8/13 at 12:47 PM

RS232 I mean the D shaped connector, VGA port, I have looked in the BIOS but cannot find any enable/disable relating to graphics, looked in the Nvidia properties for anything similar but nothing.

Slimy38 - 11/8/13 at 01:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by stevebubs
quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
RS232? The 25 pin parallel connection that has been mostly replaced by USB?


[pedant]RS232 is a serial port available in 9 or 25 pins varieties (dual row or pins). Parallel port was something entirely different[/pendant]

(I was assuming he was referring to a VGA port...

[Edited on 11/8/13 by stevebubs]


LOL! I can't even get the geek response right! I did also assume it was the onboard VGA.

Mark, do you know if the onboard actually works? What happens if you remove the graphics card, does the onboard graphics work ok?

The M3400 reference also seems to be the desktop rather than the motherboard, all I can find is a really dumbed down version of the user manual (click start to start, etc). Do you know what motherboard is inside it?

Mark Allanson - 11/8/13 at 01:47 PM

The onboard works fine with the graphics card out, I havent tried it on its own though.

The graphics card also has a HDMI port so I have just got a HDMI to DVI adapter from ebay to see if that works

BenTyreman - 11/8/13 at 04:00 PM

A lot of boards used to disable the onboard graphics when a PCI-E card was inserted. All the latest boards I have seen have included a BIOS option for "Multi Monitor", which enables the onboard graphics along with a dedicated card. Occasionally, this is dependant on the type of card (i.e. it requires an ATI card rather than an NVIDIA).

A HDMI to DVI converter is unlikely to work. Most graphics cards are only capable of 2 outputs even though they have 3 ports. Using the HDMI is likely to disable one of the DVI outputs. I especially chose my graphics card due to the fact all 3 outputs were usable simultaneously.

Slimy38 - 11/8/13 at 04:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by BenTyreman
A lot of boards used to disable the onboard graphics when a PCI-E card was inserted. All the latest boards I have seen have included a BIOS option for "Multi Monitor", which enables the onboard graphics along with a dedicated card. Occasionally, this is dependant on the type of card (i.e. it requires an ATI card rather than an NVIDIA).


The Acer website says the M3400 uses an onboard ATI card, so that may be why it can't work at the same time as the external Nvidia card.

Although I may have found the wrong one when I looked...