Issues with multiple monitors

djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
in Hardware
Hey guys, hope someone can help me...

I have 2 nVidia GeForce GTX560 Ti graphics cards set up in SLI. The way I have them set up, I have my monitor plugged into the DVI 1 port on the first card and my TV plugged into the HDMI port on the second one so I can watch films when I feel like it. I only have the second desktop set up on the TV when I intend on watching a film. The issue I am having is, last night after watching a film I turned off the wrong desktop, leaving my TV as my main display!

As it was quite late last night and I had a few beers I left it for today. Now I cannot get my monitor to work with DVI 1 on card 1! When starting up my PC it displays the POST screen and Windows startup screen using DVI 1 card 1, but then goes straight over to my TV as the only desktop! I now have a working solution and that is plugging my monitor into DVI 1 card 2 which gets the desktop back where it should be, but is it stands I don't see any POST messages or the Windows startup screen.

Obviously this is not ideal. I have played around with both the Windows (7 Ultimate) and nVidia Control Panel settings to no avail - for example in Windows if I select 'Extend my Desktop' as it should be, both screens go black until it reverts back.

Has anyone else had this kind of issue? It's killing my brain! Any help / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    Plug your DVI back into card 1 (thought it shouldn't really make a difference), turn on TV, change main display to the monitor, hit apply then go back to PC and hit Yes. What doesn't work in that scenario (i.e. I did something virtually identical 100 times at my apartment).
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    Ok if I do this in nVidia Control Panel and click apply, nothing changes on the monitor or TV, the Control Panel thinks about it for about 10 seconds then reverts back to the old, bad settings. I'm normally pretty good with this stuff but this has got me stumped!

    Seriously considering uninstalling my nVidia drivers and starting again, there is a bad setting somewhere within nVidia which seems to override Windows settings...
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    That's not a bad idea. Grab latest driver from nvidia website and then make sure to check clean install option. Assuming SLI (since you have a pair of identical cards), make sure to set that up again in the control panel (never done it myself, unfortunately).
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    Yes they are SLI. I shall do this tomorrow as I am on the late shift tonight! I shall update when attempted...
  • jumpstylerzjumpstylerz Member
    I have a similar setup but the TV is replaced with a projector. The way I fix this issue is by going through control panel, selecting the DVI monitor as the main display then set the monitors to duplicate mode rather than extend. Then turn off the TV and it should be fine
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    Jumpstylerz I tried all that but got 'Could not save changes'. Attached is a screenshot
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  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    Oh and also when trying to make my monitor the 'main display' that tick box is grayed out...
  • jumpstylerzjumpstylerz Member
    edited March 2013
    Hm, strange. Well I'm out of ideas, sorry
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    No problem, thanks for your help. I'm about to completely uninstall nVidia and then try and change the settings through windows. I shall post my solution when I get it!
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    Right so all is working after uninstalling, rebooting and reinstalling nVidia drivers. Bit annoying as I have lost my profile settings but small price to pay I guess. Thank you all for your help.
    JBoogaloo
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    Yeah, pretty much every time I've had an issue similar to yours, the first step was clean install of latest drivers and a majority of the time, that's all that is required.
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