Help with Win7 Multi-Monitor problem

[mwb1100]

I installed Win7 w/SP1 (a clean install - not an upgrade) on a system that had been running WinXP for many years in a multi-mon configuration.  things are working more or less fine with Win7 except for one irritating issue - whenever I reboot, whether it's a restart or after a full power-down, the secondary display doesn't get detected - I have to go into ATI's Catalyst tool and manually "detect displays" after which the secondary monitor works fine.  I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how I might fix this?

A few more details:

  - I have to use the Catalyst display detect button - the one in the Win7 Display control panel doesn't work (!?)
  - the video board is a low-end ATI Radeon HD 3650 PCIe - I don't recall the manufacturer
  - I updated the ATI drivers to the set available for download from AMD yesterday (Catalyst version 11.2)
  - the video card has 2 outputs, both are DVI connectors.  One has a DVI-HD15 adapter and is connected to a Dell E196FP monitor (Analog HD15 VGA), the other is connected with a DVI-D cable to a Sony SDM-HX93 Monitor.  The Dell monitor detects as and is used as primary, the Sony monitor is the one with the detection problems.
  - swapping the monitor connectors on the video card doesn't help
  - both monitors display the BIOS startup screen and the Win7 boot up animation. This suggests to me that hardware isn't an issue - there must be some driver tweak I can set.  The Sony goes dark when the Win7 logon screen is displayed.

[Ath]

  - both monitors display the BIOS startup screen and the Win7 boot up animation. This suggests to me that hardware isn't an issue

-mwb1100 (February 28, 2011, 04:42 PM)

Well, that probably is the issue. I've been using dual-monitor setups for years now, and never have both BIOS and Windows startup-stuff display on both monitors only on the main monitor!

Does your videocard have some kind of BIOS-setup that can be activated during boot? (I recall one of my older video-cards displaying a message about Ctrl-Ins or so, not sure though) Usually there you can set options like these, and I guess there is some mirroring-mode enabled which is (finally?) recognized and obeyed by the Win7 driver, that the XP driver just ignored or overruled (or had a setting for...).

[mwb1100]

Well I honestly can't recall if it did this when I was running XP on the rig or not - but since the BIOS stuff happens before the OS boots, I'd assume that at least the BIOS screen was being mirrored before.  I honestly didn't think that the mirroring at boot was unusual.  I'll have to see what happens on my work computer tomorrow.

I'm not aware of any video-card specific BIOS setup.  Only the setting in the computer's BIOS setup that lets you enable/disable the on-board video (which is disabled).

[Ath]

I've been reading around a bit, and it sounds like a driver-issue, even though you have the latest (beta's?) installed.

What if you went back to WHQL tested drivers?, just for the heck of it: See if that works, they might have slipped some fancy feature in, that you have not been waiting for...

[4wd]

I just plugged a Dell 1704FPT via a DVI->VGA adapter into my HD4850, (main monitor is a ViewSonic via DVI), and rebooted.

Both monitors displayed BIOS info, the ViewSonic displayed Windows 7 startup, and then when the Desktop came up on the ViewSonic it was extended to the Dell.

Using Catalyst 10.12 here on 7HP x64 but not SP1.

You haven't said whether the Sony will function if it's the only monitor plugged in.

Have you checked the Sony website for monitor drivers?
Windows might not have correct/up-to-date drivers with the right frequency characteristics for the monitor.

According to Sony, Windows 7 is not on the list of supported OS': SDM-HX93