Configuring my video card for dual monitors

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When I bought my Dell Dimension 4600 PC, I asked for a video card that would support two analog monitors. They supplied an NVIDIA GeForce Fx 5200 card which contains one analog and one digital output. In addition they supplied one digital to analog converter to support my second monitor. In practice I can get only one of the output ports to work at a time.

I tried contacting NVIDIA tech support, but there isn

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John,
I also have a NVIDIA GeForce Fx 5200 card in my system but I was of the thinking that this card could be used for EITHER analog OR digital outputs, NOT both at the same time.
However, I looked through all of the setup and settings for this card and it seems that the NVidia “Nview”
Display mode must be enabled in order for the dual monitors to be configured. I do not use dual monitors, so I didn’t go into any of these settings. There should be a nview dropdown in the settings page that will enable you to get to these options.

Also do you have the latest NVidia drivers for this card? Should be version 56.72. I think these are the latest, despite what the MS update shows.

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Bob, Thank you for your suggestions. I wasn’t even aware that there is a GeForce 5200 tab in Settings, Advanced. My experiments did not help though. (Before I go into that, let me reafferm that the primary analog monitor is connected to the card’s analog output and the second analog monitor to the card’s digital output through the digital to analog converter thingee. At bootup the Windows Splash screen is displayed briefly on both monitors so the signals and connections are working OK. Then as Windows comes up the second screen blanks out. Also, monitor two works fine as the primary if it simply swap the connections.)

Now onto the GeForce 5200 tab… I switched from Single Monitor to DualView and the little display window below switched from showing one screen to showing two. However the screens are labeled “Analog Display 1 + Analog Display 2”. It’s as if the driver (it’s up to date) does not know that the second output is digital. And when I click on the “Detect Displays” button, the window switches back to display only one screen. It says that it cannot detect the second screen. I’m out of ideas.

John

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Hi John,
First of all, I think we should get on the same page ( so to speak )
The latest version of the NVidia drivers is 56.72

You can download a copy from NVidia HERE

I checked the manual for the 5200FX that I have and it DEFINITELY will handle a mix of displays including 1 analog and 1 digital and other combinations. However the manual I have is for version 43.03, so the current version is much changed from the manual.

So get the latest drivers and install them. You can update right over the old ones.
Once you have 56.72, open the Nview Desktop Manager and it even has a setup wizard for multiple monitors.
You can also download the current manual from the same site as long as you have Adobe on your machine.

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Hi John,
First of all, I think we should get on the same page ( so to speak )
The latest version of the NVidia drivers is 56.72

You can download a copy from NVidia HERE

I checked the manual for the 5200FX that I have and it DEFINITELY will handle a mix of displays including 1 analog and 1 digital and other combinations. However the manual I have is for version 43.03, so the current version is much changed from the manual.

So get the latest drivers and install them. You can update right over the old ones.
Once you have 56.72, open the Nview Desktop Manager and it even has a setup wizard for multiple monitors.
You can also download the current manual from the same site as long as you have Adobe on your machine.

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John, Just wanted to add this screenshot of the main Nvida screen to show how to tell what version you have installed.
The last four digits on the right show version 56.72

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Hi Bob,
You are absolutely right. Windows had somehow lost track of my latest drivers and was showing something like 40.03 (or maybe 50.03). Then it gave up entirely, gave me an error saying that the driver was old and incompatible with XP, and was reverting to the XP default driver. I will follow your advise, download and repeat my experiments.

John

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Hi Bob,
You are absolutely right. Windows had somehow lost track of my latest drivers and was showing something like 40.03 (or maybe 50.03). Then it gave up entirely, gave me an error saying that the driver was old and incompatible with XP, and was reverting to the XP default driver. I will follow your advise, download and repeat my experiments.

John

Reply | Quote

John, Just wanted to add this screenshot of the main Nvida screen to show how to tell what version you have installed.
The last four digits on the right show version 56.72

Reply | Quote

Bob, Thank you for your suggestions. I wasn’t even aware that there is a GeForce 5200 tab in Settings, Advanced. My experiments did not help though. (Before I go into that, let me reafferm that the primary analog monitor is connected to the card’s analog output and the second analog monitor to the card’s digital output through the digital to analog converter thingee. At bootup the Windows Splash screen is displayed briefly on both monitors so the signals and connections are working OK. Then as Windows comes up the second screen blanks out. Also, monitor two works fine as the primary if it simply swap the connections.)

Now onto the GeForce 5200 tab… I switched from Single Monitor to DualView and the little display window below switched from showing one screen to showing two. However the screens are labeled “Analog Display 1 + Analog Display 2”. It’s as if the driver (it’s up to date) does not know that the second output is digital. And when I click on the “Detect Displays” button, the window switches back to display only one screen. It says that it cannot detect the second screen. I’m out of ideas.

John

Reply | Quote

John,
I also have a NVIDIA GeForce Fx 5200 card in my system but I was of the thinking that this card could be used for EITHER analog OR digital outputs, NOT both at the same time.
However, I looked through all of the setup and settings for this card and it seems that the NVidia “Nview”
Display mode must be enabled in order for the dual monitors to be configured. I do not use dual monitors, so I didn’t go into any of these settings. There should be a nview dropdown in the settings page that will enable you to get to these options.

Also do you have the latest NVidia drivers for this card? Should be version 56.72. I think these are the latest, despite what the MS update shows.

Reply | Quote