Dual monitors with XP Pro

Hello, I am a new member, 'Philmeister'.
Heard about this nice forum via an audio discussion forum.

I searched and found one thread about dual monitors.

But my question is first about any risk, tips, etc. before I plug in a PCI video card in addition to the AGP? I had system failure last week, and don't care to go through it again this week.

Secondly, I run CAD programs, and am curious if the AGP graphics performance will somehow degrade down to the PCI speed? IOW, I plan to move the toolbars to the smaller monitor, while keeping the graphics on the larger monitor.

TIA,
PEB

Welcome to Ozzu, Philmeister.

When you say system failure, what do you mean exactly?

Aside from that, I don't see any promblems with what you have in mind. As long as you are careful with the installation.

The PCI card shouldn't degrade the performance of the AGP. Overall, your system performance will drop some amount due to the demand of the extra monitor but you should be fine.

It was an incomplete Home>Pro upgrade, followed by Access Denied to my data folders.

The only thing that might concern me about lowered "system" performance is during math co-processing.

Are you referring to that, or just slower graphics paint in general?

I think Jim refers to a little slower graphic peformance, notice the "little" expression here. I have some friends working with graphic design and having a few boxes with dual montors and XP. They work great and neat with any problems.

I don't think you have any problems, but I know it can be a tricky installing it. what kind of error you got when you tried?

Honestly, you should be fine. I was just referring to overall system performance. What type of system do you have?

I have 750MHz AMD Slot A. It serves me well (I care more about the answers my programs give me than how fast my machine runs).

I'm a little gun-shy after last week. I'm about to try the PCI card, but have visions of the system not booting properly.

If things go well, is it just a matter of plugging in the PCI card and monitor, hitting the boot switch, and then standing back with a big grin?

What brand is the PCI video card? I'm sure it came with drivers so I imagine you will have to install those after installing the card. Windows XP will most likely detect the new hardware and ask for the location of the drivers.

And even if your system not boot up properly there's always the option to unplug the PCI card and try again

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=182708

If you do combine an AGP video card and a PCI video card, you will want your AGP card to be your primary video card. You will need to enter your computer system's BIOS and configure your video settings to use your AGP slot as the primary video card. (Refer to your motherboard manual or contact the manufacturer if you require more information.)

Additionally, the PCI video card should be installed in the PCI slot labeled as number one. Any additional video cards in a multiple monitor set up would then be installed in PCI slots number two, and so forth.

Just a reminder, remember to remove any original video card drivers before installing the first video card. (Restart your computer in safe mode, open Control Panel > System, select Device Manager, double-click your display adapter's icon, select your old video card, right-click and choose Remove).

Sometimes a system doesn't offer the user unlimited open PCI slots to fill up. You do have the option to purchase a single video card with dual video ports for running dual monitors. This extends the capability to all Windows users as well, supporting Windows 95/98/NT/2000.

With one video card which supports 2 monitors you only have to install one video card driver. I have found in my experience that using 2 video cards (different models and drivers) is a major pain to get working if you can do it at all.

I've had a number of cases in XP & 2000 where you need to change the bios setting to boot off Pci as primary adaptor rather than AGP for dual Vga to work. And more than one case where a bios update was needed too. and Most systems have a tendency to find and configure a PCI card before configuring AGP.

Then it sounds as though I should first stop by the BIOS beforing doing anything else. See what the options are.

I already planned to put the PCI in the uppermost slot.

I'm runnin on a Soyo VIA M/B with full-length ISA needed for one app. It's getting a little long in the tooth, but again, it's the App's that I care about...

If it's a major pain, then I will likely give up on the idea.

Question: Is boot video and primary video card the same or separate concepts?

Not all bioses will allow using the AGP slot as the primary display with some combinations. I had an Asus A7V that wouldn't boot properly in multi-monitor if the primary graphics card was an AGP ATI card.

I had it setup with a 64Meg AGP ATI Radeon 8500 Dual Head and a PCI 64Meg ATO Radeon 7500 Dual Head (for 4 total monitors).

If the AGP slot was the primary, it wouldn't boot. If the PCI slot was primary, there was no problems, and AGP performance didn't change whether it was the only card in the system, or in there with the PCI card.

It's the same basic thing, some just label it differently in the BIOS setups.

If, for some reason, your machine won't work with two separate cards, you could always pick up a card with dual monitor outputs. There are plenty of ATI and NVidia cards out there with a regular monitor port plus a DVI port. You can pick up an adapter for about 5-8 bucks that'll allow you to plug a regular monitor into the DVI socket.

Then you can run dual monitors off a single card. The dual output cards have been around a while, so you can pick them up starting at around 40 bucks for a 64Meg card (and I've seen some 128Meg cards as low as that recently).

i have had dual monitors on my computer for a while... however, recently i upgraded my main computer, and subsequently moved the motherboard (which was using dual monitors) to my server. the motherbaord is an asus A7N8X, and now it refuses to boot withthe PCI vid card, i have all the bios settigns the same, and im using the same card i was using a while back for my second monitor...

the BIOS is set to boot off the PCI card, but it doesnt even seem to recognize that it is there.... any suggestions?

in regards to my problem, nevermind, i fixed it...

Well, I had no luck. I could get either card to work even when both were installed, depending on which was set as Primary. But I could never get the PCI card to "start" when the AGP was primary. I think the PCI card is too old.

If I bought a dual-monitor AGP card, then wouldn't I need essentially the same type monitors, because the resolution can be only one setting?