PC / dual monitor help?

[SnakeCharmer]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes:

Just purchased a nice 27 inch olevia LCD HD TV widescreen for my office.  My intent is to hook the badboy up to my PC, however I am failing miserably after all is said and done.  I am using a DVI-M to HDMI-M cable to connect the PC to the Olevia.

I have an ATI x700 pro vid card, that has both VGA and DVI output, and supports dual monitors.

If both monitor/TV are connected:
Everything starts up fine.  Once it is past the opening splash screen of Windows XP home then TRIES to procede to the user log in page (where it says my name, and my wifes name at little icons, and you click as to which profile you want to select), however it doesnt make it.  I see Windows XP splash screen on both monitors, then get 'invalid signal' on the Olevia, and 'no signal' on my monitor.

If my old monitor is connected, and no Olevia:
Then everything fires up fine

If my Olevia is connected only:
I get 'invalid signal' to the Olevia.

Help?

[Trippy]

Change your display resolution to 1024 x 768 and 60 Hz (Important!) and try it again.

[SnakeCharmer]

Native resolution for the Olevia is 1366x768.

Should I try at or 1024x768?

[Trippy]

Native resolution for the Olevia is 1366x768.

Should I try at or 1024x768?

Try 1024 first.

[SnakeCharmer]

ok.  giving it a shot.

[SnakeCharmer]

OK. Tried 1024 and 1366.  Not getting a signal via the DVI output when only the Olevia is connected.  If both monitors are connected, then the first scenario still happens.

I'm wondering if I need to change the output somehow on the ati control center....

[SnakeCharmer]

OK, got ballsy and connected the Oleviia while the comp was running.  No dice.  It's currently connected now, but not receiving a signal.

[Trippy]

Stupid question. Are you sure the input selector on your TV is set to the HDMI port?

[SnakeCharmer]

Yes, it is set to receive a signal from the HDMI port.

It gets a signal momentarily if both monitors are connected.  However, once it gets past the windows splash screen, I lose signal on both monitor and Olevia TV.

Now both monitor and Olevia are connected, no signal is getting to the Olevia.

Fuck.

[SnakeCharmer]

Weird.

Whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then apply, it never sticks.  Further, whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then  select 'use this as my primary monitor', and try and apply, it doesn't stick either.

Fried vid card?

[Big Gulp]

Every now and then my setup flakes, particularly after messing around with the settings.  I assume you've tried this, but if not I'd definitely give it a shot.  First, make sure your video card app (Catalyst, or whatever the Nvidia equivalent is) is set up to clone both monitors, but of course like Trippy said, set your TV output to a 1024 resolution.  Turn off your TV and leave it off for a good while.  With your TV still hooked up to the PC, turn off (don't reboot) your PC and turn it back on.  Now try turning on your TV and switching over to HDMI.

That usually clears up my problems.

[Trippy]

Weird.

Whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then apply, it never sticks.  Further, whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then  select 'use this as my primary monitor', and try and apply, it doesn't stick either.

Fried vid card?

Is it letting you set the resolution for the Olevia now? The Windows startup screen (with the moving bar) runs at 640 x 480 60 Hz so if that was showing up you can try that first and then keep bumping up the res until it breaks again.

[SnakeCharmer]

Weird.

Whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then apply, it never sticks.  Further, whenever I select 'extend my Windows desktop to this monitor', then  select 'use this as my primary monitor', and try and apply, it doesn't stick either.

Fried vid card?

Is it letting you set the resolution for the Olevia now? The Windows startup screen (with the moving bar) runs at 640 x 480 60 Hz so if that was showing up you can try that first and then keep bumping up the res until it breaks again.

Its letting me set the res to it, but still wont send a signal to it, no matter what I do. 

Fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

I hate computers.

[Trippy]

I'm sure there's a way to make this work. Unfortunately I've never messed around with that sort of setup myself (my dual-monitor setups have been with regular PC CRTs not to an HDTV) so I'm just sort of guessing and I haven't used the ATI display software in a long while.

[SnakeCharmer]

Every now and then my setup flakes, particularly after messing around with the settings.  I assume you've tried this, but if not I'd definitely give it a shot.  First, make sure your video card app (Catalyst, or whatever the Nvidia equivalent is) is set up to clone both monitors,

Everytime I check the 'extend my desktop to this monitor' box, it resets itself after I click apply.  Is that what you mean?

but of course like Trippy said, set your TV output to a 1024 resolution.

Done.

Turn off your TV and leave it off for a good while.  With your TV still hooked up to the PC, turn off (don't reboot) your PC and turn it back on.  Now try turning on your TV and switching over to HDMI.

Will give it a shot.

That usually clears up my problems.

We'll see :(

[SnakeCharmer]

I'm sure there's a way to make this work. Unfortunately I've never messed around with that sort of setup myself (my dual-monitor setups have been with regular PC CRTs not to an HDTV) so I'm just sort of guessing and I haven't used the ATI display software in a long while.

I would be happy to just get the HDTV to pick up the SIGNAL by itself, I really could care less about two monitors.  I was just going to run two for the hell of it, since I have the 17 inch available.

[SnakeCharmer]

Bleh.  No progress.

[Furiously]

Blam ATI.

Go get a newish Nvidia card and it will be a cakewalk.

[SnakeCharmer]

Blam ATI.

Go get a newish Nvidia card and it will be a cakewalk.

I'm kinda thinking its my vid card, because I'm not getting any sort of signal out of the DVI port.  However, I am limited to an AGP or PCI interface (no PCI-E slot).

Is the fact that I am using a cable that is DVI-M to HDMI the problem?

[Surlyboi]

Blame 'doze.

Seriously.

I have a similar setup on my Mac Pro. No problems at all in OS X. I switch over to the doze partition and it flaked. I had similar problems before with a two head setup on my old 'doze box too. Though reinstalling XP actually fixed that.

So, to sum up, delete the vidcard drivers and then reinstall them -or- if that fails, reinstall XP.

[Sky]

Do you have a driver for the hdtv? If not, grab powerstrip (google it), there is a drop-down to make a driver with the settings powerstrip pulls from your monitor. It's easy, but kind of tucked away and hard to explain. I had an old thread on how to do it at avsforum, but it's archived and I can't find it from home, hopefully I still have the link at work (it's three years old heh).

Anyway, that's how I got my DLP hooked up over DVI back when.

[SnakeCharmer]

Blame 'doze.

Seriously.

I have a similar setup on my Mac Pro. No problems at all in OS X. I switch over to the doze partition and it flaked. I had similar problems before with a two head setup on my old 'doze box too. Though reinstalling XP actually fixed that.

So, to sum up, delete the vidcard drivers and then reinstall them -or- if that fails, reinstall XP.

Ugh.

I've reinstalled the vid drivers, to no avail.  I *really* don't want to reinstall XP, but....

Well.  Shit.

Do you have a driver for the hdtv? If not, grab powerstrip (google it), there is a drop-down to make a driver with the settings powerstrip pulls from your monitor. It's easy, but kind of tucked away and hard to explain.

I'll give that a shot tonight.  Thanks for the info.

[Big Gulp]

Is the fact that I am using a cable that is DVI-M to HDMI the problem?

I doubt it, since I've got an ATI card and that's exactly how my cable is set up.  I don't know what to tell you, man.  I got mine working the first time, and corrected it's sometime flakiness through trial and error.