Eyefinity not working on 3rd monitor, ATI HD5870 Ef 6 Options

[Antraman]

Just got an active mini-displayport to DVI adapter for my 3rd monitor, as thats what a search of the net said was wrong, but no...still not working.

The monitor is detected correctly by Windows in the display properties dialogue, but I can't extend my desktop to the 3rd monitor and get it to save...it always unable to save display settings.

I have tried disabling one of the 2 working monitors, then getting that 3rd one working, so I know the monitor and the cable is OK.

Also, my son is having the same problem with his setup.

I remember nesquick once said in another VGA thread that my VGA wouldn't be able to run 6x monitors, but he did not elaborate. Card has 6x mini-display port connectors at back.

Any ideas would be good....

stats:

AMD Phenom II 955 CPU
8GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
ASUS M4A79T Deluxe MB
1xWD Velociraptor 450GB Sata III HDD
1x WD Velociraptor 150GB Sara II HDD
2x Samsung 1TB SATA II HDD
ATI Powercolor HD5870 Eyefinity 6 2GB
3x ASUS VE278Q full HD monitors
Windows 7x64 ulitmate

[Antraman]

maybe I should have posted this in Audio and Displays?

[NukeJockey]

It should work for 3 no problems, try uninstalling your drivers, driversweeping and then re-installing new ones?

I don't know much about eyefinity, but the fact that it doesn't let you save the setup sounds like a driver bug?

[Antraman]

Having done a bit of research, I see that many other people had the same problem, and the suggestion was to use an *active* mini display port adapter.

I grabbed one off ebay and connected it up, and still having the same problems. There wasn't really anything on the adapter to suggest it was active as opposed to other types of adapters, but on the Wiki page aboot display port, it doesn't make any mention of special drivers, or issues with multiple screens...

I am using the latest catalyst 11.xx drivers from the Powercolor website, they don't offer special Eyefinity drivers, just one for 5800 series cards.

The AMD website has a page for this very acrd, and a link to Eyefinity 6 driver...but it takes you to the generic driver page. There are no special drivers for Eyefinity.

EDIT: Hmmm, I think it was active, but not sure now...it doesn't specifically say on the listing, but a diagram I saw somewhere, thought it was on Wiki, showed active as having all the holes, as this one does.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/190605301881?ss...984.m1439.l2649

This post has been edited by Antraman: Dec 30 2011, 08:54 PM

[nobodyishere]

the generic drivers are for intents and purposes identical to the one powercolor gives you, the only difference is they have edited a file with device ids to list their name on each card, so any card with powercolors device/subvendor ID shows as "Powercolor ATi/AMD radeon XXXX xxxmb" instead of "AMD/ATi Radeon XXXX" etc in windows and or apps that grab the name of the graphics card from the windows device manage API.

Amd maintains a list of known Active DP/mDP to DVI/HDMI adapters that are known to work without a problem, if you get a generic one you may run into issues. 1 way to tell if its a real powered active adapater is that it will have another cable that connects to a power source, like a usb connecter on a short cable

[Antraman]

Is that what makes them 'active' though? Having a separate/additional power supply? Have you got any links you could point me to describing this? All I was able to find was that the active adapters had more wired connectors than the normal ones, meaning they carried eztra signal or something from the VGA.

I shall try the generic looking driver linked on the Powercolor site and see if that helps...

Cheers

[nobodyishere]

Is that what makes them 'active' though? Having a separate/additional power supply?

yep thats exactly what makes them "active", they are essentially converting a DP signal to DVI/HDMI, the two signals arnt usually compatible with each other, but HDMI is backwards compatabile with DVI v1.0, so a converter needs to convert it to work, if that make sense?

[Antraman]

Yeah I kinda get what you're saying, but I only need mDP to DVI (dual link, I think). I already have 2 non-powered adapters connected, running to dual-link DVI powering the other 2 monitors. I don't see why I suddenly need a powered one to run the 3rd...

This post has been edited by Antraman: Jan 1 2012, 11:38 AM

[nobody813]

Could we get a picture or link to your adaptor?

[nobodyishere]

Yeah I kinda get what you're saying, but I only need mDP to DVI (dual link, I think). I already have 2 non-powered adapters connected, running to dual-link DVI powering the other 2 monitors. I don't see why I suddenly need a powered one to run the 3rd...

from what i understand, the 5k/6k series (non 6 mDP cards) have 3 (or possibly 4 on the 6k series, not 100% sure) TDMS transmitters, 2 combine to drive the dual-link, 1 powers the 2nd DVI, which leaves none left to drive the third. Ill see if i can find the related documents on it on the web somewhere that explains it better.



edit: alright, found the info here:

taken directly from the wiki: evergreen info on wiki

"The display unit on Evergreen family of GPUs was completely replaced with one that has two DACs which are used to drive the DVI ports in analog mode (for example, when a DVI to VGA converter attached to a DVI port), a maximum of six digital transmitters that can output either a DisplayPort signal or a TMDS signal which is used for either DVI or HDMI, and two clock signal generators needed to drive the digital outputs in TMDS mode. Dual-link DVI displays use two of the TMDS/DisplayPort transmitters and one clock signal each. Single-link DVI displays and HDMI displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and one clock signal each. DisplayPort displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and no clock signal."

so i was partially right, the card only has 2 clock signal generators, and you need 1 per DVI/HDMI display, so you can use a max of 2 passive adapters, rest must be all active converters.

This post has been edited by nobodyishere: Jan 1 2012, 11:24 PM

[Antraman]

Thx nobody, I dug a bit deeper re the power thing and I think I have arrived at an answer. It seems that the Eyefinity cards will support up to a max of 2 "legacy" adapters, which means the standard VGA/DVI cables, but 3 or more required either a "direct display port" enabled monitor, or a separately powered display port adapter. So yeah the info was there, but christ one had to dig for it. WHY this was not made clear on the Eyefinity card's box or in the manual I have no idea, but it was causing me to begin thinking this was all a con.

So it seems an active mDP-DVI adapter looks like this:

Wicked Wired adapter

It needs a power source from a powered USB hub.

Since the Eyefinity 6 supports up to 6 monitors, one will therefore need 4x active mDP-DVI connectors, and also 4 spare USB ports which will be permanently used for the adapters.

So I think adding one of these to the rear of the PC for power will be the go:

4 port USB hub with onboard power

At 4x $59 + $35 that's another $270 just to get your 4 extra monitors up and running...

No wonder the manual or box doesn't talk about this.....it certainly would make people think twice about going multi-monitor.

This post has been edited by Antraman: Jan 4 2012, 10:14 PM

[Antraman]

Seems like this problem is now sorted...parts arrived, installed and working as hoped. Woohoo!

Here's my set-up, now with a game stretched across the 3 screens...I must say it looks great, much more immersive.




It taxes the VGA pretty hard though...temps on the GPU VRM according to Aida64 are running into the 90's C...I suspect that when I put the aftermarket cooler on, I missed something...


This post has been edited by Antraman: Jan 17 2012, 05:11 PM

[Oscar40]

Seems like this problem is now sorted...parts arrived, installed and working as hoped. Woohoo!

Here's my set-up, now with a game stretched across the 3 screens...I must say it looks great, much more immersive.




It taxes the VGA pretty hard though...temps on the GPU VRM according to Aida64 are running into the 90's C...I suspect that when I put the aftermarket cooler on, I missed something...

Hi,yes I went throught a similar experience late last year,finaly found some usefull stuff on AMDs forums,and finally got it all working,then had trouble with "games for windows live" until I managed to sort thet out too,now it all seems worthwhile but I was close to giving up a few times!
Have flight ,race/rally and train simulators all working great,will put some pics up if you would like,cheers Doc

[Antraman]

Hey man, yeah feel free to post some pics of your setup, would be interesting to see what others are doing in multimonitor stuff.

My next problem with this setup as I mentioned earlier is the very hot temps of the GPU VRM as registered in AIDA64...I have seen as high as 94deg C. Usually when it gets this hot I stop whatever it is I am doing.

I don't know why I didn't do it earlier, but I googled 5870 VRM and found considerable mentions of 5870s VRMs getting fried. Interestingly, and I love them for this...Thermalrite has produced this:



The VRM R4 Heatsink

One should be arriving in the mail soon...so I'll report how it goes.

This post has been edited by Antraman: Feb 16 2012, 09:56 PM

[Oscar40]

Interesting post,I have had a 6870 going with 3x24 Asus monitors since just before xmas,but it took a lot of head scratching and forum looking to get it all right,the best forum was ATI's own,I noticed the high temps and discovered if you take the fans off auto and manually set the fans to about 55% the temp stays at about 60deg,with auto sensing the temp will go into the ninetys as you discovered! All in all it all works very well! My card is just the standard single fan model by the way.
Doc.

[ginaholic]

For 3 screens, if you're needing a Display Port to DVi adaptor, you'll need an Active one. Not the cheap 10 to 20 bucks adaptors.

Here's the Active Display Port to DVi adaptor I'm using, it's the best deal right now for an actual real Active adaptor. I searched everywhere. Only other models I found that perform the same function and quality as this where 50 USD. This one only set me back $25.99 USD plus a 5 USD packing fee.

http://chinacheapbuy.com/index.php?main_pa...;products_id=69

I also found the same model on Ebay, which maybe from the same source, price is nearly the same.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11030.m43.l...AEF%3AGB%3A1123

The adaptor has an IC circuit for this function that is a new chip and design purposely suited for this, so the performance is A1 and it makes all those other really high priced units obsolete. Forget about trying to use those cables from Amazon for 10 to 20 bucks they can't handle this task.

[wraith676]

Hmm you can get a 20 dollar mini dvi to vga adapter from dick smith that works.

[Antraman]

Hmm you can get a 20 dollar mini dvi to vga adapter from dick smith that works.

Got a link? Don't forget it needs to be active mini display port adapter, which means it has a USB power connector as well.

I never got around to posting results of the addition of the VRM R4 heatsink, anyway, it worked a treat. 1 little VRM was overheating and wasn't getting enough heat dissipation via the small ramsinks supplied. This comparatively large heatsink, just for 1 small <1cm x 1cm chip on the card, heats up considerably. So its doing it job.


Shown here with the card fitted to the machine. I can always add a case fan to blow over it if it gets too hot in summer.

[wraith676]

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/XB1503/ds-...-to-vga-adaptor

As requested. And yes this works as it is currently pumping out eyefinity goodness to my 3 monitor setup :)

I would also like to note that the hdmi version of the same cable doesn't work.

[Antraman]

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/XB1503/ds-...-to-vga-adaptor

As requested. And yes this works as it is currently pumping out eyefinity goodness to my 3 monitor setup :)

I would also like to note that the hdmi version of the same cable doesn't work.

Yup...coz that one you linked is not "active". I got the exactly the same item and had the same issue. You are probably able to get 3 monitors working because 2 of them are legacy hdmi...ie a DVI out and something else. My EF6 has 6x mDISP out and therefore don't get any legacy benefit.

This post has been edited by Antraman: Jul 7 2012, 01:28 PM