Dual monitor - only one screen at once

[udprod]

**POSTING THIS FOR A FRIEND**'
-- Sorry if this is the wrong section --

Hi.

I recently felt like setting up dual monitors, and I found my old AOC monitor on a dusty shelf...

Now... my graphics card only supports ONE DVI and ONE VGA port, and since that both my monitors are DVI, I bought a converter/adapter DVI-VGA. Anyway, when I booted up and got to my desktop, the second monitor did not light on!!! I can move my mouse unto it, and Windows can definitely see it in the display options.

I then tried to unplug my primary monitor, and plug my old monitor into where the primary monitor's cable was. My old monitor then worked! Afterwards I tried using my primary monitor with the adapter, and then it was only my old monitor that would light up!!

They both have the same refresh hate of 60 hertz, but they have different resolutions.

What could be the cause of this?

Thanks

System:
Palit 250 GTS
AMD 245 x2 Dual Core
Gigabyte m61pm3-s2p motherboard
Acer V193W primary monitor
AoC (unknown model) old monitor.
Vista 32 bit Home Basic
Corsair 400 W PSU

 

[Paperdoc]

It appears your DVI/VGA adapter is not doing the job. Now, I have not used these things. But what you're trying to do is convert an analog VGA signal into a digital signal for your old AOC monitor. That is NOT a simple adapter - it's a box with processing power. And I would expect it to require a software driver installed in windows. Did you get a driver and install it? And configure it?

If what you got was really a simple adapter that is intended to take an analog VGA signal available in the DVI output connector of a modern video card and make it available to a standard VGA cable, then you have the wrong device. That simple adapter does no conversion i it only takes a real VGA signal already produced by the video card and "converts" the pins in the connector.

As a possible alternative, some video cards have one DVI output connector but can supply TWO DVI monitors from it, because the card actually produces two digital outputs on different pins in the one connector. To do this you need a different adapter to "convert" the one output connector to two. Check whether your video card does this. If yes, check how to get the right adapter.