Eyefinity Problems With XFX HD-687A-ZHFC Radeon HD 6870

HexicoreAndy

Honorable
Jun 24, 2012
3
0
10,510
Hello Tom's Hardware Community,
I am attempting to assemble a three monitor Eyefinity array with my (relatively) new computer but have encountered an issue with the third monitor. I can operate my system with two monitors in an extended desktop configuration with no problems whatsoever, but when I attempted to enable the third monitor in Windows screen resolution menu I recieve the message "Unable to save display settings". I have also tried this in Catalyst Control Center which forces me to disable one of the two operating displays to enable the third monitor. The two displays I am able to use in an extended desktop configuration are connected to the DVI-D porton on my graphics card while the thrid monitor is connected to the Mini-DisplayPort on the graphics card through a MDP to DVI-D adapter. Can anyone help me figure this out or oint me in the direction of another thread that could be of some assistance?

Thanks,
Andy

System Specifications:
CPU...................................AMD Phenom II 1055T
Motherboard.......................ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3
RAM..................................G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 2GBx2
Graphics............................XFX HD-687A-ZHFC Radeon HD 6870
Power................................Corsair HX850W
HDD..................................2x Seagate Barracuda 720.12 500GB in RAID 1
SSD..................................Kingston SSDNow 100V+ 96GB
OS....................................Windows 7 Ultimate x64
MiniDP to DVI-D Adapter......Kanex IADAPT DVI
Monitors............................Dell 1704FPT at 1280x1024, 75hz
 
Solution
to use 3 displays you must use an ACTIVE MDP to DVI converter. Not a passive adapter. Are you sure yours is active?

Edit: Whoops see the.part number now. pretty sure its passive and wont work

HexicoreAndy

Honorable
Jun 24, 2012
3
0
10,510


I was told by the Best Buy employee that it was indeed active (although this isn't indicated anywhere on the package). I guess I should have taken the hint when I went to seek advice from Geek Squad and they handed me a Mini DVI to DVI-D adapter the second time around.

Thanks, unksol, I will purchase an active adapter (see link below) and see if that works (there's $25 down the drain...). Any suggestions or recommendations besides the model below?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-999-034&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1
 
newegg reviews say it works well and I generally trust sapphire. its not actually validated by AMD though, but that wouldn't stop me. I think my friend is using an accell one off the validated list.

AMDs list of validated ones is here if you care(passive or active is at the very end of each category description)
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx

As for best buy... if they told you that I'd take it back and complain. they always have those open box tables so they must take stuff back if you complain enough. I'd just tell them it must be defevtive since it doesn't do what they said.