Connecting 9 LCD monitors

Mmartin_47

Been invited to my Father's work at the datacenter he works at. Setting up a new workstation consisting of 9 Dell LCD monitors and I believe one (not sure yet) NVIDIA FX 570 graphics card.

Is it possible to connect all 9 monitors to 1 video card even with only 2 DVI outputs? Just wondering how this is done. Only setup I've ever done or troubleshoot is with 2 monitors.

Why 9 monitors? There all operations analyst. 1 montior displays their email, other is mainframe console, tape library console, etc etc

astorrs

6 is the most I've ever done off one computer but those were in a control room. At the time we had to make use of multiple PCI slots in the computers, but technology has come a long way since then.

Good luck!

KGhaleon

Tell them to stop being lazy and use one monitor like everyone else has too. Seriously, a monitor for emails? For tapes? Lol

Mmartin_47

KGhaleon wrote: »

Tell them to stop being lazy and use one monitor like everyone else has too. Seriously, a monitor for emails? For tapes? Lol

LOL yeah. But then again these are the people that watch this datacenter and our other one based in San Francisco. I think we have a lights-out one too, not sure. Basically they just make sure everything critical is running such as our mainframes, SAP, SQL, etc. They have multiple stations with the same setup so if I cannot get an idea of how its setup, I'll just head down anyways and compare.

msteinhilber

I've only done a handful of systems like this for various side jobs I've done. The most recent was about 3-4 months ago, and it was for a day trader for 8 displays. Some of the Nvidia cards (Was a Quadro4 NVS I believe) support 4 displays, so we went with two of these. As I've said, I've only done a handful of these, but the most outputs per card that I came across in my search was 4, so for 9 displays you will very likely need 3 video cards of some sort. ATI also has a FireMV series that can support 4 displays as well.

tiersten

Matrox make a box called the TripleHead2Go that splits the output of a video card into 3 monitors.

Mmartin_47

msteinhilber wrote: »

I've only done a handful of systems like this for various side jobs I've done. The most recent was about 3-4 months ago, and it was for a day trader for 8 displays. Some of the Nvidia cards (Was a Quadro4 NVS I believe) support 4 displays, so we went with two of these. As I've said, I've only done a handful of these, but the most outputs per card that I came across in my search was 4, so for 9 displays you will very likely need 3 video cards of some sort. ATI also has a FireMV series that can support 4 displays as well.

Hmm. Kind of tells me they have 2 NVIDIA 570's and possible using the onboard video adapter. Main problem is monitor 1, only displays 8 bit color and has a low resolution. The rest of the remaining monitors ( work fine. Must be something with the adapter I guess. Well I'm heading down there on Sunday morning. Apparently their desktop support tech. doesn't have a solution. They should fire him and hire me

KGhaleon

Where I work the most I've seen is three monitors, but I know they sell adapters or these little Y-shaped DVI devices that allow you to connect two monitors to one port on the computer.

This: http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/HP/DL139A/E81297/

kalebksp

KGhaleon wrote: »

Where I work the most I've seen is three monitors, but I know they sell adapters or these little Y-shaped DVI devices that allow you to connect two monitors to one port on the computer.

This: Hewlett-Packard Dms-59 To Dual Dvi Cable Kit (DL139A) - Output Cables

Those are for special cards that provide a single connector which includes the wires for two DVI connections. Like ATI's workstation graphics cards: FireMV 2200 PCI

The most I've setup is 6 monitors, which was a pain because I was using cheap graphics cards that didn't all use the same chipset. If you have a choice, get a few of the workstation grade graphics cards, all the same model. Trying to mix and match is difficult and unreliable.

Mmartin_47

kalebksp wrote: »

Those are for special cards that provide a single connector which includes the wires for two DVI connections. Like ATI's workstation graphics cards: FireMV 2200 PCI

The most I've setup is 6 monitors, which was a pain because I was using cheap graphics cards that didn't all use the same chipset. If you have a choice, get a few of the workstation grade graphics cards, all the same model. Trying to mix and match is difficult and unreliable.

Yeah I heard about mixing and matching in my MSPress book for 70-271. Well the machines there are already built and connected. But I think they may have Y adapters or something.

tiersten

KGhaleon wrote: »

Where I work the most I've seen is three monitors, but I know they sell adapters or these little Y-shaped DVI devices that allow you to connect two monitors to one port on the computer.

This: http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/HP/DL139A/E81297/

As kalebksp said, these aren't actually DVI splitters. You need the box I previously linked for that.

I ordered a bunch of low profile HP branded nVidia Quadro cards for dual head and they all had the special DMS-59 plug on them. The low profile back plate isn't big enough for two DVI sockets so they combined them into one big plug.

Mmartin_47

tiersten wrote: »

As kalebksp said, these aren't actually DVI splitters. You need the box I previously linked for that.

I ordered a bunch of low profile HP branded nVidia Quadro cards for dual head and they all had the special DMS-59 plug on them. The low profile back plate isn't big enough for two DVI sockets so they combined them into one big plug.

Woops sorry, have a habit of calling them splitters all the time I see a cable shaped as a Y. I guess how their setup is they have 2 NVIDIA cards, using 1 cable for each DVI output. That makes 8 monitors. Pops did mention they are using onboard video as well for the 9th monitor. Problem is the main monitor is displaying graphics in 8 bit and low resolution. I'm guessing thats the one connected via onboard since the rest work fine. Maybe driver is missing or I have to play around with the settings tomorrow morning.

tiersten

Mmartin_47 wrote: »

I guess how their setup is they have 2 NVIDIA cards, using 1 cable for each DVI output. That makes 8 monitors. Pops did mention they are using onboard video as well for the 9th monitor.

Most probably that is how it works. The highest number of outputs on an nVidia card I can find is 4.

Mmartin_47 wrote: »

Problem is the main monitor is displaying graphics in 8 bit and low resolution.

Is it actually supposed to display something better? The dualhead cards I was installing were for traders and their Reuters feeds look terrible with a 16 colour palette and blocky text. You'd think it was a 20 year old machine by the output.

Mmartin_47

tiersten wrote: »

Most probably that is how it works. The highest number of outputs on an nVidia card I can find is 4.


Is it actually supposed to display something better? The dualhead cards I was installing were for traders and their Reuters feeds look terrible with a 16 colour palette and blocky text. You'd think it was a 20 year old machine by the output.

Supposed to display a normal 32 bit and 1280 resolution. The rest of the workstations work fine. All 9 monitors display their windows without any problem. However this video card is 1 model ahead of the rest. Just got word that our other station in our TCC (telecommunications control center) has the same problem, same setup as well. I think it's a matter of playing around with the settings. My understanding is that most likely the monitor having problems is connected to the onboard VGA port.

tiersten

Mmartin_47 wrote: »

Supposed to display a normal 32 bit and 1280 resolution. The rest of the workstations work fine. All 9 monitors display their windows without any problem. However this video card is 1 model ahead of the rest. Just got word that our other station in our TCC (telecommunications control center) has the same problem, same setup as well. I think it's a matter of playing around with the settings. My understanding is that most likely the monitor having problems is connected to the onboard VGA port.

It sounds like the built in graphics hardware isn't being detected by the OS and its falling back to the defaults of 8 bit colour at 800x600. As you said this card is different to the others, the existing drivers may not work. If they're using a ghost image then they'll need to update it.

Even if the monitor isn't being detected properly by the graphics hardware, it should still offer you greater than 8 bit colour. It won't give you the maximum resolution but the palette should be as normal.

Mmartin_47

tiersten wrote: »

It sounds like the built in graphics hardware isn't being detected by the OS and its falling back to the defaults of 8 bit colour at 800x600. As you said this card is different to the others, the existing drivers may not work. If they're using a ghost image then they'll need to update it.

Even if the monitor isn't being detected properly by the graphics hardware, it should still offer you greater than 8 bit colour. It won't give you the maximum resolution but the palette should be as normal.

Yeah probably a driver issue. Will find out tomorrow. I know their using Dell machines but I have no idea which model. Just know they contain NVIDIA cards and also are using the onboard VGA port.

Mmartin_47

kalebksp wrote: »

Those are for special cards that provide a single connector which includes the wires for two DVI connections. Like ATI's workstation graphics cards: FireMV 2200 PCI

The most I've setup is 6 monitors, which was a pain because I was using cheap graphics cards that didn't all use the same chipset. If you have a choice, get a few of the workstation grade graphics cards, all the same model. Trying to mix and match is difficult and unreliable.

Problem fixed. You were right about the cables. The PC had 3 video cards. All 3 were NVIDIA. Card 1 had 1 DVI for the main monitor (monitor 1). Cards 2 and 3 handled the rest along with those cables.

Problem was looks like the drivers were simply corrupted. I wasn't allowed to touch the computer physically and mess around with the settings. Told one of the employees working there what to do. At first I wanted to open the NVIDIA control panel, but somehow after a reboot it became corrupted and failed to open. I told him to uninstall the drivers since they are packaged together. He didn't want to and tried to do a repair, that didnt do any good.

Finally he agreed to uninstall the drivers and reinstall. He was flipping out because his mouse didnt correspond to the monitor layout. So we rearranged the monitors in the display properties. The back of the monitors, the cables are numbered, but they were kind of off. Not sure if the numbering had to do with the monitor position, or simply just used to trace the cable. No problem, just clicked on the identify monitors button and wrote down the layout.

skrpune

wow, that's actually pretty funny. So from what I gather, it kinda went like this:
So ummm, hi. Our IT guy doesn't know how to fix this, and we need your help but you can't touch anything, and we won't listen to you but we want you to fix it and did I mention you can't touch it, but I guess if I ignore you and it gets more broken then I'll finally give in and let you help me fix it.

Is that about right?!

Glad to hear it worked out though, good to know that you can have umpteen monitors attached with just a few cards & some adapters.

Mmartin_47

skrpune wrote: »

wow, that's actually pretty funny. So from what I gather, it kinda went like this:
So ummm, hi. Our IT guy doesn't know how to fix this, and we need your help but you can't touch anything, and we won't listen to you but we want you to fix it and did I mention you can't touch it, but I guess if I ignore you and it gets more broken then I'll finally give in and let you help me fix it.

Is that about right?!

Glad to hear it worked out though, good to know that you can have umpteen monitors attached with just a few cards & some adapters.

Well the "we won't listen to you part", talked to my dad about it. He works 8pm-8am. The guys machine I was working on he works from 7AM-7PM. Right after I finished and came home, talked to my dad once he woke up and he said if he doesn't know you at first he will not trust you. He was like that when my dad first started 5 years ago.

Probably didn't let me touch the mouse and keyboard also because upon logon to the domain, a box comes up stating that you agree to only allow company employees to access the computer. So either or both. Don't know but my dad said he trusts me now. He spent hours on the problem and it took me 2. I could of done it faster if I had control over the mouse and keyboard though, but whatever.

He was scared to uninstall the driver completely, fearing it would mess everything up and lose his main #1 monitor. It happened at first and it was funny. "He said ah crap dude I'm screwed all over".

5 minutes later, he was pretty damn happy. Went outside and talked for about 15 minutes or so, just wrapping up what I found out was wrong and what my predictions were.

remyforbes777

You want to make sure that the FSB is at least 1333. We have a NOC wall in our datacenter and before I started, the person who I replaced built the system to run it but it kept locking up the system. After a little troubleshooting I found out that if you plan to run that many monitors you need a FSB to handle it.

Mmartin_47

remyforbes777 wrote: »

You want to make sure that the FSB is at least 1333. We have a NOC wall in our datacenter and before I started, the person who I replaced built the system to run it but it kept locking up the system. After a little troubleshooting I found out that if you plan to run that many monitors you need a FSB to handle it.

Interesting. All I know it was a new Dell machine. Not sure on the FSB. Most machines are now 1333?

markk2008

I've never heard of 9 displays off 1 card in the past, they must be using some kind of splitter cable/cables, otherwise it is just not possible.

I do remember seeing a card that can support 4 displays, so yeah, that is the most that I know is possible off one card with no extra cables etc.

I didn't actually know that you could use the onboard vga adapter as well as the graphics card, but I suppose it is just a setting in the Nvidia or Windows control panel.

Mmartin_47

markk2008 wrote: »

I've never heard of 9 displays off 1 card in the past, they must be using some kind of splitter cable/cables, otherwise it is just not possible.

I do remember seeing a card that can support 4 displays, so yeah, that is the most that I know is possible off one card with no extra cables etc.

I didn't actually know that you could use the onboard vga adapter as well as the graphics card, but I suppose it is just a setting in the Nvidia or Windows control panel.

Their not using the onboard VGA. It was a guess, in fact they don't have one! They are using 3 NVIDIA cards of all the same model with splitters. You are right.

markk2008

oh right...ok

That makes sense.

Cheers