Who uses Dual Monitors???

if you are using standard monitors with standard monitor plugs
(the d type 14 pin ones) you can plug in both cards and monitors, boot, do the bios thing, and xp will recognise both monitors.
your pci will boot first, with the xp display etc, and when windows has started it will swop to the agp monitor, probably the pci monitor will display a flashing cursor only, in the top left hand corner.
when you tick the extend desktop thing and do apply etc it should all work.:)
you may of course have to install the new drivers for the cards but xp will prompt you.

This is all great help, thanks. :)

Unfortunately, it's closing in on Noon here, and the brown truck hasn't shown up yet. Looks like Monday. :(

Concerning the pci over AGP cards. The new monitor is the one I want to use as the primary, because it'll be new, and it's a slightly better quality than the one I already have. Which card is going to end up being the primary? I mean, will the AGP sort of take over? I don't want to force one over the other if there is a natural windows, [or motherboard], preference. :)

by default the agp will be the primary monitor.
hmm bit of a short answer..
anyway i hope your cards come soon and best of luck
(though you should'nt need it)!
oh and by the way the secondary monitor should sit to the right of
the primary, cos dragging and dropping is very disorientating otherwise:eek:
you will find also that windows will remember which monitor is which so when you drag an app or page or pic whatever onto the second monitor it will remember it when you open it next time, which imho is damn cool:)

I have a machine that has an onboard. Yes, when you put in your AGP card, BIOS will use the AGP and disable the onboard. It should do it automatically, so I doubt you will have to change a thing.

Once that happens the onboard is no longer used. The plug won't even be powered, so don't bother plugging anything in to it.

Once you put your AGP in, plug your monitor in to it, and you're good to go. You can also plug the PCI card in at the same time. BIOS will still do its thing and make the AGP your primary card.

As someone mentioned, you will need to enable the second display through the settings tab in Display properties (Available through the control panel, or right click->properties on the desktop). One of the monitors will have that greyed-out disabled look. Click it, and then click the checkbox that says "Extend my display to this monitor" or something to that effect. Click OK and you're done.

Houston, we have a problem. :(

Quote:

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Click it, and then click the checkbox that says "Extend my display to this monitor" or something to that effect. Click OK and you're done.

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Yeah, I did that, it went black for a minute, then came back with the box unchecked and the second monitor is still in sleep mode. It's turned on, but blacked out. It's like it won't take.

I have both cards installed. The AGP is the primary. And there is an option in BIOS to set one or the other, and set it for AGP.

set pci first in the bios.

I was just reading the help thing for dual monitors. It said that the pci card has to be set in the 0 or 1 slot, the furthest ones from the agp slots.

I'll try the bios thing first, but I bet I have to move the card.

Well, I have two monitors now, but as soon as I try and open a program, like Flash, the computer restarts. :(

I haven't moved the card yet, just set it in BIOS.

Here's what I've learned.

1. On an Intel ATX board, the number 1 PCI slot is the top one, closest to the AGP slot. The PCI card has to go in that to work.

2. You have to go into BIOS to set the PCI card to be the Primary. Setting the AGP to Primary seems to work, but none of the high RAM programs like Flash, Premier, Camtasia Studio, etc. will work. They will crash Win XP PRo when you try and open them. I really do mean crash, like old W95 crashed, go dead, restart, the whole bundle.

3. After BIOS, you have to go into Settings, select the Secondary monitor and check the "Extend my desktop onto this monitor" button. Click Apply and OK. The screen goes black, then comes back on and your good to go. Sort of. If you happen to reboot for any reason, you will have to do this again. For some reason, the settings don't seem to take permenantly.

4. The secondary monitor, in this case, the one on the AGP card, [which to me, seems to be the better card], is not as sharp or as clear as the primary. I mean, it is washed out looking. Dramatically washed out. Text and fine lines are fuzzy and the colors are really weak. I've tried resetting the properties, which you can do from Settings/Advanced, but it doesn't seem to help much.

If anyone has had the same problems, or knows of a fix, I'm listening.

Is your version of XP legit?

I've never heard of anyone having so many problems with a dual setup... its normally just plugin and go.

Yup, it's legit. In fact, that's another story in itself. I live with my brother, and he uses this computer the very few times he needs to go online, and he had put his copy of XP Pro on it. I wanted it all to be in my name, come the time I move away, so I just bought a copy about a month ago. Talk about lost data and headaches galore. I can tell you, you can't just install over an old copy. Although, his copy installed over my old W98 SE just fine.

So yes, this is legit and registered.

Searched the knowledge base?

Yes, and Google. My eyes are burning from reading so much about this. The closest thing to a fix I can see is to get an adapter and try and run it off one card. Cause I've tried every other thing that's been suggested. Just bites big time that so many others can make it work on 2 cards with no problems, and mine won't. The cards are even the same brand and models. :mad:

Did you install the drivers for the monitors (and latest drivers for the cards)?

Sounds obvious, but people don't always install the monitor drivers (I presume you're using TFT here) :)

I did install the drivers from the CD that came with the new monitor. And since the last post, I have tried installing the drivers for the older monitor from the CD. But they are for up to W2000 only. So I searched and downloaded for updated drivers and am about to install them now.

All the drivers for the cards are in and updated, BTW. Everything else I can think of is up to snuff. And I appreciate someone walking through this with me. :)

I'll be back.

<edit>

No change. But right now, that's not the big problem. I want to fix the crashing unless I redo all the steps of extening windows to the second monitor. After any reboot, unless I uncheck it, save and recheck the extend to both monitors box, it crashes bad when I try and open Flash.

Also, when I do that, it doesn't remember the state of previous settings. Like opening a new window in the second monitor.

You need to do that, and then restart, before you open Flash. For some reason WXP only likes to save the desktop settings like that when you log out.

What make/model are each of your cards?

One more thing. You say you have an Intel board. Go to the Intel site and make sure you have the latest drivers for your board and latest firmware revision for your BIOS. There's probably an update to your AGP chipset, which will cure the fuzziness.

These are the cardss:

Connect3D Radeon 7000 / 64MB DDR / AGP / VGA / DVI /TV Out / Video Card (C261-6005)

PowerColor Radeon 7000 / 64MB DDR / PCI / VGA / DVI / TV Out / Video Card (P262-1002)

They are all updated, as is my BIOS and everything else it's possible to update, as of 3 or 4 weeks ago.

I also had the thought to check the extend to both monitors thing, Apply/Save and reboot. Didn't help. For whatever reason, if I reboot again, I have to uncheck/apply and then do it all again to reapply the extended monitors before I can open flash.

And, I found the CD for my older monitor and reinstalled the drivers for that. I got back some of the color, but not like when it plays alone. It didn't help the crash problem at all.

As I said in my previous post all my troubles were due to the fact that I had Adobe Cue installed, so maybe some other software is causing you all this trouble.
I know that uninstalling and installing software can be tedious (and not the most techy solution) but it could be an alternative way to go.
Also lost color and sharpness in my old monitor, something that was driving me crazy because I knew that it didn't look that bad before, so I asked a technician that lives in my building if he could help me with it. And he did, but he had to open the case and tweak something called "flyback" if i remember the name correctly, which increased the brightness of it. He gave me an explanation that involved hertz and the voltage of the monitor, but I was completely lost by then, still the monitor displays much better now than it did before i had the two of them running.

Well, hope you can get it right.

w00t - got it. I should have known. It was the card driver. Apparently, I got the wrong one. So I checked around and downloaded and installed the latest driver for this card. Since both cards are essentially the same, Radeon 7000 series, one driver seems to cover both of them, or the other driver I installed was for one card, this got the other one, not sure. At any rate, the restart business is fixed. What a relief. :)

The secondary monitor still looks a bit washed out, but it is better than it was. I can live with it, and will probably edit the color later.

Thanks to all who helped. It's really appreciated.

Now, what do I do with it? LOL. I mean I know the obvious, but is there any neet things you've found you can do with duals that you want to share? :D