ATI FirePro V4800 (FireGL) 3 monitors not working anymore

[aostberg]

I have a Dell Precision T3500 with an ATI FirePro V4800 (FireGL) video card. It is running Windows 7 Enterprise x64. It has three outputs on the back of it. 2 display port outputs and one DVI output. I have adapters on each display port output that go to a single DVI output for each of them. This current setup allows for up to 3 monitors on this card. Monitor 1 on display port 1 with an adapter to convert it from display port to DVI. Monitor 2 on display port 2 in that same fashion. Monitor 3 on the dedicated DVI port. I have had the machine for about a year now. It was working fine with 3 monitors up until 3 days ago.

I went to upgrade the ATI Catalyst software on it and that is when the problem started. Now regardless of whether I am running the old Catalyst Software or the new Catalyst Software, I can only get 2 of the 3 monitors to be enabled. It doesn't matter which 2 (1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 1 and 3) that I enable, but I can't get the third monitor to become enabled.

There is something in the back of my mind from a year ago about not actually installing the Catalyst Software but instead installing a subset of it to get it to work properly on win7 x64 but I can't remember for sure what the sequence was or what subsets to install. Any help would be much appreciated.

Has anyone else run into this before? What am I missing here?

Trying to consolidate all this into a single post and add some additional information that might help someone that is thinking about helping me

 

[aostberg]

I went to upgrade the ATI Catalyst software on it and screwed it up. Now regardless of whether I am running the old Catalyst Software or the new Catalyst Software, I can only get 2 of the 3 monitors to be enabled. It doesn't matter which 2 (1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 1 and 3) that I enable, but I can't get the third monitor to become enabled. There is something in the back of my mind from a year ago about not actually installing the Catalyst Software but instead installing a subset of it to get it to work properly on win7 x64 but I can't remember for sure what the sequence was or what subsets to install. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[aostberg]

So final resolution in this case. Completely un-installed all ATI drivers. Deleted the C:\ATI folder that had previously contained the drivers. rebooted. Win7 detected and installed a driver. Used device manager to right click it selected uninstall, checked the box to delete driver as well. Rebooted again. Was reduced to a single monitor at this point. Ran the latest Catalyst driver install package and selected drivers only (none of the other software packages). Good to go with all three monitors again.

 

[mallphin]

I am running into the same issue on a Dell Optiplex 990. I've tried your solution a couple of times with no luck. I did get to the point that I was reduced to a single monitor, but installing the driver puts me back where I started. Converting my DVI output to VGA doesn't fix anything, but if I convert one of my display port outputs to VGA, I can run three monitors just fine, which seems strange. Any ideas why I can't get three digital signals from this card?

 

[aostberg]

I am running into the same issue on a Dell Optiplex 990. I've tried your solution a couple of times with no luck. I did get to the point that I was reduced to a single monitor, but installing the driver puts me back where I started. Converting my DVI output to VGA doesn't fix anything, but if I convert one of my display port outputs to VGA, I can run three monitors just fine, which seems strange. Any ideas why I can't get three digital signals from this card?

Not sure but in some of the other forums I read where you have to have active adapters for the display port to DVI adapters to be able to run three DVI with this card. One of the forums even had a link to an ATI page that showed compatible adapters that are active versus passive. Have you run three monitors before and it just stopped working or is this the first time you have tried running 3 with this card?

 

[mallphin]

Not sure but in some of the other forums I read where you have to have active adapters for the display port to DVI adapters to be able to run three DVI with this card. One of the forums even had a link to an ATI page that showed compatible adapters that are active versus passive. Have you run three monitors before and it just stopped working or is this the first time you have tried running 3 with this card?

Thanks for the reply. This is the first time I've tried it. My coworker has the same configuration and has the exact same issue. We're getting around it by converting to VGA for one monitor, but the stubbornness in me wanted to get this working with all 3 DVI. I don't think I'll go through the trouble to get new adapters though. Thanks again.

 

[hwe123]

Hi, I have a Optiplex 990 with an ATI FirePro V4800. It was working fine with 3 monitors, then it stopped after a software update. After many attempts to fix, the solution was to install two Startech DP2DVIS Active Display Port to DVI adapters. Hope this saves someone some time!