Need help

[ForumNameHere]

OK, so I'm about to give up the triple monitor ghost. Everything was working nicely with my three Asus monitors, Visiontek 7970, and Acell B087b adapter. Then one day, the monitors started blinking. I switched out the video card with a 6870 I had upgraded from, and all was well.


As a result of this, I RMA'd my 7970, but while my 7970 was in process, the blinking started again. So, I RMA'd my Acell Adapter.

My new adapter just came, I hooked it up to the new 7970 that's been working fine, and all I get is blinking. I've tried hooking a different monitor to the adapter without help. I also hooked the Acelll adapter into a powered USB hub in case there was a power issue with the USB plugs on my MB.

If my video card is new, my adapter is new, and I'm still having this problem, what could it be? I've updated to the latest AMD drivers.


I'm clueless. As always, thanks to the moderators who put in so much work for us to benefit.

-c

[Haldi]

PSU?

What kind of blinking and when does it happen?

[Oraijon]

Also, do all monitors flicker or only the one that was connected through the adapter?
What happens when you only connect two monitors?

[ForumNameHere]

First off, thanks for the replies; I appreciate it.

When I'm runnging two monitors everything is fine. I can run a DVI monitor and a monitor plugged into my adapter/display port without problems. If I boot all three monitors, two will run on start up just like before when all was working, but when windows tries to boot, all three monitors blink on and off rapidly in a random fashion and won't stop. If I unplug the display port monitor (or even the HDMI one), the blinking stops and the two remaining monitors run fine. If I try to boot two monitors and then plug in the adapter/display port monitor, it does the same thing.

My PSU is a silverstone 1000 watt. It seems to be powering my video card OK, but, at this point, anything is a possibility.

Any chance it's my cables? Maybe my DVI cable (or cables) are just cheap? Maybe can't supply the bandwidth? Ever hear of any such craziness? After replacing both my video card and adapter, I'm grasping at straws perhaps.

[Oraijon]

Well if things look normal on all three screens until you get to windows, i'm leaning towards a software problem. What i'd try first is wiping your current drivers entirely and reinstalling them:

1. Install Driver Sweeper (or Driver Fusion as apparently they renamed the latest versions to that)
2. Uninstall drivers
3. When asked to reboot, reboot into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper and let it clean out all AMD display drivers
4. Reboot Windows normally and install your drivers again

It's possible that (maybe because of the card swapping), that there's some faulty .dll files from older drivers hanging out somewhere in your system that's causing this ruckus.
Also try lowering your resolution, during booting you're not running high resolution either so just to check if that makes a difference.

Your PSU should be fine, i believe the high end Silverstones are quite good but it's always possible to have bad luck of course. so if the above doesn't work and if you have one you can take from another system you can try replacing it to see if it makes a difference (doesn't have to be a heavy one since you're only wanting to get into windows to see if the screens stop flickering). All in all I wouldn't suspect the PSU to be the culprit in this case though.

What are the rest of your system specs?

[Haldi]

looks like this ?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/hPbbsM7ZnGg[/youtube]

[ForumNameHere]

Sorry, I've been away. This is something that is still bugging me, tho.

I tried the driver fix, and res fix, neither of which seem to have helped.

The rest of my system specs are:

Asus rampage extreme SOMETHING, I can't remember the number right off
core i7-920 formally water-cooled at 4.2 GHz, currently running stock on air because the water got yucky
6 gigs ram
soundblaster x-fi audio
coolermaster cosmos case
radeon hd 7970
1000 watt psu

Built her December 08 (except the video card, of course). Up until now she was doing everything i needed her to do so hadn't seen a reason to buy newer.

And as for the blinking video movie: yep that about sums it up. What's the fix? I can't seem to make it work.

-C

[Ultimeas]

I know I'm new at this, but did you check your clocks? Doesn't Catalyst keep the clocks higher when using more than one monitor to prevent flickering?

I don't know if this is possible, but could something be reverting your clocks back to single monitor idle with all three monitors connected?

[ForumNameHere]

Ultimeas: Yikes, that's way over my head, but if you have an idea how I could test it, I'll do it.

Unfortunately, right now everything I own is in boxes. Since this thread was started, I've begun a move that has taken on a life of its own. Plus, I work 7 days a week often. It's a mess. Hopefully, I'll have things back up and running in the next few weeks.

Thanks for the input!