[manakbains]

I have a ATI Radeon X300 graphics card and it has 1xDVI and 1xVGA connectors. I set up a dual display with my primary monitor (Viewsonic VP930 - LCD - 1280 x 1024) using the DVI connector and my secondary display (Dell 1504FP - LCD - 1024 x 768) using the VGA connector.

Everything works fine with the above configuration. However, I wanted to use DVI with my secondary display as well. So I bought a DVI Splitter Cable.

So, I hooked it up. Usually, when I boot up my pc the boot loader and boot screen only shows up on my primary display and on the secondary display it just says 'this video mode is not supported'.

However, this time the boot loader and boot screen showed up on both displays. Unfortunately, when it came time for the Windows XP welcome screen both displays go blank.

I don't understand why this happens, anyone got any ideas how I can fix this?

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I could be way off here but I want you to try something.

If it works I will tell you why it works if not then just change it back

Disconnect the 2nd monitor so your first one boots properly then go into your radeons control panel and change the dual display option to clone display (or whatever radeon uses)

reconnect both monitors on the splitter and try again (obviously turn the comp off to do this)

[DeSade]

I could be way off here but I want you to try something.

If it works I will tell you why it works if not then just change it back

Disconnect the 2nd monitor so your first one boots properly then go into your radeons control panel and change the dual display option to clone display (or whatever radeon uses)

reconnect both monitors on the splitter and try again (obviously turn the comp off to do this)

[manakbains]

I don't know how to 'clone' with ATI Hydravsion, but I used the 'mirror' feature of Ultramon (I have both installed) and tried your suggestion. However, it didn't work.

thanks anyway

[warriorscot]

Why are you trying to use the DVI anyway the difference will be nothing as long as the monitor is of good quality, its all to do with the quality if the electronics of the monitor, but by the time they brought out DVI the electronics for decoding VGA were advanced enough the image quality was pretty much identical.

[dsenette]

i would imagine that the fact that the bootloader is showing up on both screens at the same time is due to the fact that with the dvi splitter...you basically (as far as your card is concerened) have on monitor hooked up...it's the same signal going to both monitors....just like when y ou put a p hone splitter on a phone line...you didn't add a new phone line..you just added a plug...as to why they are going black..not real sure...unless something's getting mucked up in the splitter...maybe turn off the dual monitor support all together...and try with both monitors plugged in....in theory...(if my assumptions stated above are correct)...you should get the same display on both monitors...i.e. move the mouse and you should see the mouse moving on both monitors...open up a prog..and it will open on both..

[warriorscot]

You could also get a VGA DVI converter as well for the card it usually comes with them actually.