Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned
that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got
the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months
ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned
that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got
the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months
ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What you could be seeing is a "VPU recover".

That's where there is a watchdog timer on graphics,
that detects if the video card stops responding. The
system can then reset the card and reload it. The idea
behind this was specifically so system state would not
be affected.

Before this improvement, if a video card froze up, so did
your session, and then it was reboot time. You're trading
a black screen for a second or two, versus needing a reboot.

This could be a hardware issue or a driver issue. I would
normally blame the driver.

*******

You could try mixing video solutions. It's hard to say
why the VPU recover was happening in the first place.
Like, one ATI card, one NVidia card, three monitors.
Two drivers.

*******

The 790 MT accepts full height cards. This doc doesn't mention
length. The power supply is only 265W. One slot is x16,
one slot is x4. The x4 slot probably won't have room
for a double-width card.

http://clascsg.uconn.edu/download/specs/O790.pdf

Your 5450 would be a good card from a power perspective,
as it's only 15W flat out or so. If the card was passively
cooled and in the lower slot, I suppose it could
overheat. But the user probably isn't gaming, so it
should be drawing around 3W or so idle.

*******

There are a few ways to do this.

1) Look for a $$$ Matrox or similar, one that could drive
four monitors from its two onboard GPU chips. These are
generally gutless cards, used for stock trading display.
The monitors can have any orientation you want in the
display control panel. I think PNY may have made some
dual NVidia quad display cards like this too.

2) Do what you've done already. Use two video cards. Each
card supports dual head. Giving enough drive for four
monitors, and your user is using three. The only problem
I've had with this concept, is if using two identical video
cards, windows will suddenly decide to "swap" the role of
the cards, screwing up the display control panel orientation
of monitors. If the cards were different brands, it might
not do that (swap Nvidia for ATI).

3) Another solution is Eyefinity. Normally video cards
are dual head (three connectors, use any two). With
Eyefinity, three monitors have a fixed relationship,
suited to a panoramic orientation. For example, three
1920x1080 monitors with Eyefinity, becomes one
5760x1080 surface, and likely only consumes one "head".
Apparently Eyefinity can support six monitors in a 2x3
array, and maybe that consumes dual head as a result.

The problem with Eyefinity (and yes, NVidia has their
own solution for this), is the feature of having a ton
of connectors on the faceplate, tends to be on high
end cards. There just doesn't seem to be a market
niche for stock traders in this. I.e. a user who
wants a low power card, that can drive a ton of
monitors.

For example, this card is $150, but has two 2x3 power
inputs, which the little 265W power supply could not handle.
You'd need a Fortron 12V booster box to get enough power.
The fan noise from the Fortron and the video card,
would mean an upset customer. The card only actually draws
a ton of power, if you're gaming. Or maybe opening a
LibreOffice Calc window with OpenGL chart or graph.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814137185

Eyefinity is basically an instance of the Matrox
monitor spanning tech, but implemented in the GPU
output crossbar block.

This loony article mentions doing Eyefinity on a 5450.
The only problem with that, is a typical 5450 has
DVI, VGA, HDMI, and the res limits on some of those
will compromise the ability to drive three big monitors.
I look for DisplayPort cards, in the hope of finding
sufficient resolution capability for the monitors.
And DP can be converted to other formats (VGA requires
an active, powered adapter).

https://techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/th...like-50-cheap/

4) You could try a Matrox converter, but I don't know
if the resolution choices would be high enough for
your application. This can do things like take one
video card output, and drive two monitors. Two
1920x1080 monitors require the video card to be set
to 3840x1080 on one port, then the Matrox box splits
the image into two 1920x1080 outputs. Matrox made
DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go as examples of this.
Naturally, driving large surfaces like that, on
something as weak as a 5450, would suck, so the
user would have to be really really tolerant. The
advantage of this method, is allowing a wider range
of dual-head card designs to solve your problem.

This one is discontinued.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/

This is the main table. To use this product, you start
with the monitor resolution choices, and make sure both
the video card and the Matrox box, supports what you
want to do.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Even though this is a triple head box, you might
want to run it as 2 x 1920x1200, due to the res of the
monitors. The BH site lists this at $300! The USB
port provides +5V for the internal FPGA and junk.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/

https://static.bhphoto.com/images/mu...IMG_357212.jpg

Depending on the output options on the Matrox box, you might
need some sort of passive DP to DVI adapter if the monitor was
only DVI. And the two monitors off the Matrox would have a
fixed (panoramic) relationship to each other. Whereas the third
monitor could be place on either side, top or bottom with respect
to them, in the display control panel.

3840x1200
videocard ---- DP ------- Matrox triplehead2go DP --- 1920x1200
--- 1920x1200
---- DVI ---------------------------------- 1920x1200
1920x1200

*******

Paul

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

"t" wrote in message
eb.com...

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned that
he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon 5450,
firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus, malware
scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got
the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months
ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and web
browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Seems to be a common problem with Radeons. I bought a couple of 4650s for
different machines & they both displayed the same message. Tried all the
drivers I could find, including Omega which were used for gaming, but
nothing helped. I thus presumed the problem was inherent & lived with it
until I could replace them.

--
Regards
wasbit

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

On 8/6/2017 2:24 AM, t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon 5450,
firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus, malware scans
and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got the
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months ago
have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and web
browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

If the aim is to drive a large but indeterminate number of monitors then
Matrox is probably the way to go -- not for gaming but for displaying a lot
of 2D data at one time with no problems. They make setups that will
reliably drive anything from four monitors to an entire wall of them in a
business or theatrical setting. I've never used more than two monitors on a
single computer and a few different mainstream adapters have handled it
well; most recently it is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 which it is claimed
will support four monitors. I've never seen any freezes in any of three
different multi-monitor attempts though.

I take it that you've done all of the usual hardware checks for power
supply stability and heat along with ensuring that the newest drivers are
installed.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

Paul wrote:

t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned
that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got
the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months
ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What you could be seeing is a "VPU recover".

That's where there is a watchdog timer on graphics,
that detects if the video card stops responding. The
system can then reset the card and reload it. The idea
behind this was specifically so system state would not
be affected.

Before this improvement, if a video card froze up, so did
your session, and then it was reboot time. You're trading
a black screen for a second or two, versus needing a reboot.

This could be a hardware issue or a driver issue. I would
normally blame the driver.

*******

You could try mixing video solutions. It's hard to say
why the VPU recover was happening in the first place.
Like, one ATI card, one NVidia card, three monitors.
Two drivers.

*******

The 790 MT accepts full height cards. This doc doesn't mention
length. The power supply is only 265W. One slot is x16,
one slot is x4. The x4 slot probably won't have room
for a double-width card.

http://clascsg.uconn.edu/download/specs/O790.pdf

Your 5450 would be a good card from a power perspective,
as it's only 15W flat out or so. If the card was passively
cooled and in the lower slot, I suppose it could
overheat. But the user probably isn't gaming, so it
should be drawing around 3W or so idle.

*******

There are a few ways to do this.

1) Look for a $$$ Matrox or similar, one that could drive
four monitors from its two onboard GPU chips. These are
generally gutless cards, used for stock trading display.
The monitors can have any orientation you want in the
display control panel. I think PNY may have made some
dual NVidia quad display cards like this too.

2) Do what you've done already. Use two video cards. Each
card supports dual head. Giving enough drive for four
monitors, and your user is using three. The only problem
I've had with this concept, is if using two identical video
cards, windows will suddenly decide to "swap" the role of
the cards, screwing up the display control panel orientation
of monitors. If the cards were different brands, it might
not do that (swap Nvidia for ATI).

3) Another solution is Eyefinity. Normally video cards
are dual head (three connectors, use any two). With
Eyefinity, three monitors have a fixed relationship,
suited to a panoramic orientation. For example, three
1920x1080 monitors with Eyefinity, becomes one
5760x1080 surface, and likely only consumes one "head".
Apparently Eyefinity can support six monitors in a 2x3
array, and maybe that consumes dual head as a result.

The problem with Eyefinity (and yes, NVidia has their
own solution for this), is the feature of having a ton
of connectors on the faceplate, tends to be on high
end cards. There just doesn't seem to be a market
niche for stock traders in this. I.e. a user who
wants a low power card, that can drive a ton of
monitors.

For example, this card is $150, but has two 2x3 power
inputs, which the little 265W power supply could not handle.
You'd need a Fortron 12V booster box to get enough power.
The fan noise from the Fortron and the video card,
would mean an upset customer. The card only actually draws
a ton of power, if you're gaming. Or maybe opening a
LibreOffice Calc window with OpenGL chart or graph.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814137185

Eyefinity is basically an instance of the Matrox
monitor spanning tech, but implemented in the GPU
output crossbar block.

This loony article mentions doing Eyefinity on a 5450.
The only problem with that, is a typical 5450 has
DVI, VGA, HDMI, and the res limits on some of those
will compromise the ability to drive three big monitors.
I look for DisplayPort cards, in the hope of finding
sufficient resolution capability for the monitors.
And DP can be converted to other formats (VGA requires
an active, powered adapter).


https://techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/th...like-50-cheap/

4) You could try a Matrox converter, but I don't know
if the resolution choices would be high enough for
your application. This can do things like take one
video card output, and drive two monitors. Two
1920x1080 monitors require the video card to be set
to 3840x1080 on one port, then the Matrox box splits
the image into two 1920x1080 outputs. Matrox made
DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go as examples of this.
Naturally, driving large surfaces like that, on
something as weak as a 5450, would suck, so the
user would have to be really really tolerant. The
advantage of this method, is allowing a wider range
of dual-head card designs to solve your problem.

This one is discontinued.


http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/

This is the main table. To use this product, you start
with the monitor resolution choices, and make sure both
the video card and the Matrox box, supports what you
want to do.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Even though this is a triple head box, you might
want to run it as 2 x 1920x1200, due to the res of the
monitors. The BH site lists this at $300! The USB
port provides +5V for the internal FPGA and junk.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/


https://static.bhphoto.com/images/mu...IMG_357212.jpg

Depending on the output options on the Matrox box, you might
need some sort of passive DP to DVI adapter if the monitor was
only DVI. And the two monitors off the Matrox would have a
fixed (panoramic) relationship to each other. Whereas the third
monitor could be place on either side, top or bottom with respect
to them, in the display control panel.

3840x1200
videocard ---- DP ------- Matrox triplehead2go DP --- 1920x1200
--- 1920x1200
---- DVI ---------------------------------- 1920x1200
1920x1200

*******

Paul

One thing the user did not mention how old are the 22in monitors. Speaking
from experience i had the same problem, that he is speaking about with one
monitor, every so often the above problem would happen to me.

The monitor has since been changed and the problem has stopped.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

On 8/6/2017 3:39 AM, Paul wrote:
t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22
inch Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA)
graphic card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for
another of our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user
mentioned that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from
a serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that
message scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP
22 inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who
got the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few
months ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF
GT 730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov
be a better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What you could be seeing is a "VPU recover".

That's where there is a watchdog timer on graphics,
that detects if the video card stops responding. The
system can then reset the card and reload it. The idea
behind this was specifically so system state would not
be affected.

Before this improvement, if a video card froze up, so did
your session, and then it was reboot time. You're trading
a black screen for a second or two, versus needing a reboot.

This could be a hardware issue or a driver issue. I would
normally blame the driver.

*******

You could try mixing video solutions. It's hard to say
why the VPU recover was happening in the first place.
Like, one ATI card, one NVidia card, three monitors.
Two drivers.

*******

The 790 MT accepts full height cards. This doc doesn't mention
length. The power supply is only 265W. One slot is x16,
one slot is x4. The x4 slot probably won't have room
for a double-width card.

http://clascsg.uconn.edu/download/specs/O790.pdf

Your 5450 would be a good card from a power perspective,
as it's only 15W flat out or so. If the card was passively
cooled and in the lower slot, I suppose it could
overheat. But the user probably isn't gaming, so it
should be drawing around 3W or so idle.

*******

There are a few ways to do this.

1) Look for a $$$ Matrox or similar, one that could drive
four monitors from its two onboard GPU chips. These are
generally gutless cards, used for stock trading display.
The monitors can have any orientation you want in the
display control panel. I think PNY may have made some
dual NVidia quad display cards like this too.

2) Do what you've done already. Use two video cards. Each
card supports dual head. Giving enough drive for four
monitors, and your user is using three. The only problem
I've had with this concept, is if using two identical video
cards, windows will suddenly decide to "swap" the role of
the cards, screwing up the display control panel orientation
of monitors. If the cards were different brands, it might
not do that (swap Nvidia for ATI).

3) Another solution is Eyefinity. Normally video cards
are dual head (three connectors, use any two). With
Eyefinity, three monitors have a fixed relationship,
suited to a panoramic orientation. For example, three
1920x1080 monitors with Eyefinity, becomes one
5760x1080 surface, and likely only consumes one "head".
Apparently Eyefinity can support six monitors in a 2x3
array, and maybe that consumes dual head as a result.

The problem with Eyefinity (and yes, NVidia has their
own solution for this), is the feature of having a ton
of connectors on the faceplate, tends to be on high
end cards. There just doesn't seem to be a market
niche for stock traders in this. I.e. a user who
wants a low power card, that can drive a ton of
monitors.

For example, this card is $150, but has two 2x3 power
inputs, which the little 265W power supply could not handle.
You'd need a Fortron 12V booster box to get enough power.
The fan noise from the Fortron and the video card,
would mean an upset customer. The card only actually draws
a ton of power, if you're gaming. Or maybe opening a
LibreOffice Calc window with OpenGL chart or graph.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814137185

Eyefinity is basically an instance of the Matrox
monitor spanning tech, but implemented in the GPU
output crossbar block.

This loony article mentions doing Eyefinity on a 5450.
The only problem with that, is a typical 5450 has
DVI, VGA, HDMI, and the res limits on some of those
will compromise the ability to drive three big monitors.
I look for DisplayPort cards, in the hope of finding
sufficient resolution capability for the monitors.
And DP can be converted to other formats (VGA requires
an active, powered adapter).


https://techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/th...like-50-cheap/


4) You could try a Matrox converter, but I don't know
if the resolution choices would be high enough for
your application. This can do things like take one
video card output, and drive two monitors. Two
1920x1080 monitors require the video card to be set
to 3840x1080 on one port, then the Matrox box splits
the image into two 1920x1080 outputs. Matrox made
DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go as examples of this.
Naturally, driving large surfaces like that, on
something as weak as a 5450, would suck, so the
user would have to be really really tolerant. The
advantage of this method, is allowing a wider range
of dual-head card designs to solve your problem.

This one is discontinued.


http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/

This is the main table. To use this product, you start
with the monitor resolution choices, and make sure both
the video card and the Matrox box, supports what you
want to do.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Even though this is a triple head box, you might
want to run it as 2 x 1920x1200, due to the res of the
monitors. The BH site lists this at $300! The USB
port provides +5V for the internal FPGA and junk.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/


https://static.bhphoto.com/images/mu...IMG_357212.jpg


Depending on the output options on the Matrox box, you might
need some sort of passive DP to DVI adapter if the monitor was
only DVI. And the two monitors off the Matrox would have a
fixed (panoramic) relationship to each other. Whereas the third
monitor could be place on either side, top or bottom with respect
to them, in the display control panel.

3840x1200
videocard ---- DP ------- Matrox triplehead2go DP --- 1920x1200
--- 1920x1200
---- DVI ---------------------------------- 1920x1200
1920x1200

*******

Paul

Thanks Paul,

I appreciate all your detailed advice. I will try using two video cards
and hope it resolves the issue.

Are there any good graphic cards which would not have this VPU recover
and would fit in the 790 mini tower? Perhaps, next time I should get
those for such uses.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

On 8/10/2017 5:28 AM, Darklight wrote:
Paul wrote:

t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22 inch
Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic
card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for another of
our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user mentioned
that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from a
serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that message
scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP 22
inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who got
the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few months
ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF GT
730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov be a
better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What you could be seeing is a "VPU recover".

That's where there is a watchdog timer on graphics,
that detects if the video card stops responding. The
system can then reset the card and reload it. The idea
behind this was specifically so system state would not
be affected.

Before this improvement, if a video card froze up, so did
your session, and then it was reboot time. You're trading
a black screen for a second or two, versus needing a reboot.

This could be a hardware issue or a driver issue. I would
normally blame the driver.

*******

You could try mixing video solutions. It's hard to say
why the VPU recover was happening in the first place.
Like, one ATI card, one NVidia card, three monitors.
Two drivers.

*******

The 790 MT accepts full height cards. This doc doesn't mention
length. The power supply is only 265W. One slot is x16,
one slot is x4. The x4 slot probably won't have room
for a double-width card.

http://clascsg.uconn.edu/download/specs/O790.pdf

Your 5450 would be a good card from a power perspective,
as it's only 15W flat out or so. If the card was passively
cooled and in the lower slot, I suppose it could
overheat. But the user probably isn't gaming, so it
should be drawing around 3W or so idle.

*******

There are a few ways to do this.

1) Look for a $$$ Matrox or similar, one that could drive
four monitors from its two onboard GPU chips. These are
generally gutless cards, used for stock trading display.
The monitors can have any orientation you want in the
display control panel. I think PNY may have made some
dual NVidia quad display cards like this too.

2) Do what you've done already. Use two video cards. Each
card supports dual head. Giving enough drive for four
monitors, and your user is using three. The only problem
I've had with this concept, is if using two identical video
cards, windows will suddenly decide to "swap" the role of
the cards, screwing up the display control panel orientation
of monitors. If the cards were different brands, it might
not do that (swap Nvidia for ATI).

3) Another solution is Eyefinity. Normally video cards
are dual head (three connectors, use any two). With
Eyefinity, three monitors have a fixed relationship,
suited to a panoramic orientation. For example, three
1920x1080 monitors with Eyefinity, becomes one
5760x1080 surface, and likely only consumes one "head".
Apparently Eyefinity can support six monitors in a 2x3
array, and maybe that consumes dual head as a result.

The problem with Eyefinity (and yes, NVidia has their
own solution for this), is the feature of having a ton
of connectors on the faceplate, tends to be on high
end cards. There just doesn't seem to be a market
niche for stock traders in this. I.e. a user who
wants a low power card, that can drive a ton of
monitors.

For example, this card is $150, but has two 2x3 power
inputs, which the little 265W power supply could not handle.
You'd need a Fortron 12V booster box to get enough power.
The fan noise from the Fortron and the video card,
would mean an upset customer. The card only actually draws
a ton of power, if you're gaming. Or maybe opening a
LibreOffice Calc window with OpenGL chart or graph.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814137185

Eyefinity is basically an instance of the Matrox
monitor spanning tech, but implemented in the GPU
output crossbar block.

This loony article mentions doing Eyefinity on a 5450.
The only problem with that, is a typical 5450 has
DVI, VGA, HDMI, and the res limits on some of those
will compromise the ability to drive three big monitors.
I look for DisplayPort cards, in the hope of finding
sufficient resolution capability for the monitors.
And DP can be converted to other formats (VGA requires
an active, powered adapter).


https://techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/th...like-50-cheap/

4) You could try a Matrox converter, but I don't know
if the resolution choices would be high enough for
your application. This can do things like take one
video card output, and drive two monitors. Two
1920x1080 monitors require the video card to be set
to 3840x1080 on one port, then the Matrox box splits
the image into two 1920x1080 outputs. Matrox made
DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go as examples of this.
Naturally, driving large surfaces like that, on
something as weak as a 5450, would suck, so the
user would have to be really really tolerant. The
advantage of this method, is allowing a wider range
of dual-head card designs to solve your problem.

This one is discontinued.


http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/

This is the main table. To use this product, you start
with the monitor resolution choices, and make sure both
the video card and the Matrox box, supports what you
want to do.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Even though this is a triple head box, you might
want to run it as 2 x 1920x1200, due to the res of the
monitors. The BH site lists this at $300! The USB
port provides +5V for the internal FPGA and junk.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...o/displayport/


https://static.bhphoto.com/images/mu...IMG_357212.jpg

Depending on the output options on the Matrox box, you might
need some sort of passive DP to DVI adapter if the monitor was
only DVI. And the two monitors off the Matrox would have a
fixed (panoramic) relationship to each other. Whereas the third
monitor could be place on either side, top or bottom with respect
to them, in the display control panel.

3840x1200
videocard ---- DP ------- Matrox triplehead2go DP --- 1920x1200
--- 1920x1200
---- DVI ---------------------------------- 1920x1200
1920x1200

*******

Paul

One thing the user did not mention how old are the 22in monitors. Speaking
from experience i had the same problem, that he is speaking about with one
monitor, every so often the above problem would happen to me.

The monitor has since been changed and the problem has stopped.


Thanks, the monitor is 5 years old but was working in another computer.
I will try swapping it. I appreciate your advice.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

On 8/6/2017 6:04 AM, wasbit wrote:
"t" wrote in message
eb.com...

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22
inch Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA)
graphic card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for
another of our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user
mentioned that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from
a serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that
message scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP
22 inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who
got the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few
months ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF
GT 730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov
be a better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Seems to be a common problem with Radeons. I bought a couple of 4650s
for different machines & they both displayed the same message. Tried all
the drivers I could find, including Omega which were used for gaming,
but nothing helped. I thus presumed the problem was inherent & lived
with it until I could replace them.


Thanks, I hope to find some other card which does not have this issue.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

On 8/6/2017 9:41 AM, John McGaw wrote:
On 8/6/2017 2:24 AM, t wrote:

A user in our office has a Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower with two 22
inch Dell monitors and wants an additional 22 inch Dell monitor.

We got a VisionTek Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA)
graphic card from another office, which had a spare graphic card, for
another of our users a while ago who needed a third monitor. That user
mentioned that he
saw some freezes, then a message that your graphic card recovered from
a serious error. The user does not lose any files/data but that
message scares him when his three monitors go blank for 2-3 seconds.
Two of the monitors are Dell 22 inch monitors and third one was a HP
22 inch monitor.
I checked his computer, he had the latest driver updates for Radeon
5450, firmware updates for his Optiplex 790. I also ran anti-virus,
malware scans and the computer was clean.

The user who needs an additional monitor now and the other user who
got the Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (DVI-I, DP, VGA) graphic card few
months ago have Dell Optiplex 790 Mini Tower.

Both users are typical office users who have Outlook, Excel, Word and
web browsers open most of the time.

1. Can getting a Gigabyte GV-N730D5-2GI (rev. 2.0) graphics card - GF
GT 730 https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...-2GI-rev-20#ov
be a better option to
avoid the freezes and other issues, the first user was facing who had
Radeon 5450 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M?

2. Or, would any other graphic card work better for such usage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

If the aim is to drive a large but indeterminate number of monitors then
Matrox is probably the way to go -- not for gaming but for displaying a
lot of 2D data at one time with no problems. They make setups that will
reliably drive anything from four monitors to an entire wall of them in
a business or theatrical setting. I've never used more than two monitors
on a single computer and a few different mainstream adapters have
handled it well; most recently it is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 which it
is claimed will support four monitors. I've never seen any freezes in
any of three different multi-monitor attempts though.

I appreciate your advice. I will try getting a used NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950.

I take it that you've done all of the usual hardware checks for power
supply stability and heat along with ensuring that the newest drivers
are installed.

Yes, I did that.

Graphic card for running three 22 inch monitors
 

t wrote:

Thanks Paul,

I appreciate all your detailed advice. I will try using two video cards
and hope it resolves the issue.

Are there any good graphic cards which would not have this VPU recover
and would fit in the 790 mini tower? Perhaps, next time I should get
those for such uses.

From a technical perspective, I would personally
prefer to handle it with a single card. That is, as long
as the monitor orientation is panorama 1x3. I understand you
can use one of the other monitor outputs as a "random"
non-Eyefinity monitor, so if you wanted to arrange the
three monitors in the letter "L", you could.

Your idea of using two monitors is fine, except for two things.

1) Greater potential for one monitor to update 30ms after the other.

2) Possibility OS will randomly swap the purpose of the two video cards,
such that the left monitor becomes the right monitor and vice versa.
I wouldn't mention this, except it happened to me. I don't really
know how prevalent Display Control Panel issues are with multiple
video cards.

If you had a 5450, then I'd probably buy a second.

If the 5450 was doing VPU reset, I'd buy a couple
cheap NVidia cards to replace it. Sometimes you can
get cards for $30 to $50. Back-to-School is coming soon,
so expect prices to be headed in the wrong direction.

A few things for computers are under supply pressure. We're
short of Flash. We're short of DRAM. On video cards, the
high end cards are being used to mine Ethereum. But that should
leave the $30 cards for your experiment.

(A 710 with a fan on it. $38)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814125900

That one has DVI-D not DVI-I. There are no VGA signals on the
DVI connector. You could use a "DVI to HDMI out" adapter on the
bottom connector, for 1920x1080. Otherwise, the card may simply
not have the resolution options needed for your project.

Getting max connector flexibility could cost $200. For that price,
you could likely drive quite a variety of monitors. But that
card probably wouldn't be that good a choice for a machine with
a teeny tiny PSU.

As long as you check the specs, you've made sure you have
the right connectors for the three monitors (or an adapter
or two to cover off that requirement), I'm sure you can
whip something together. My main concern then would be
with the (1) behavior. Even when you use two heads on the
same video card, they could end up out of phase. Whereas
with Eyefinity 1x3 panorama mode, they'd be aligned in
time (since they're actually coming off a single head
just before the crossbar).

This doc has a picture of the crossbar. See page 8.
It takes a few seconds for the picture on page 8 to
render so be patient.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061126...Whitepaper.pdf

For Eyefinity, you'd be using the top block on the left,
and then using three connectors on the right (off the crossbar).
A single head generates 5760x1080, and the crossbar does
"Matrox triple head" style chopping, to make three 1920x1080
outputs. That's how Eyefinity would differ from the generation
in that document.

Paul