BSOD if HDMI is also plugged in while trying to play a game

[boswbr25]

So I just bought a HD7850 and got it up and running fine but am having a weird issue (or at least I think it is weird).

I use DVI for my computer monitor but also planned to connect to my TV via HDMI for watching video. Problem is that when I try to play a game, it will start but very quickly bring up a BSOD. I tried both Skyrim and Far Cry 3 with the same results. I confirmed that I had the "Screen Resolutions" setting was "Display only on Desktop 1" instead of "Extend Desktop" or Duplicate Desktop" so I thought that the HDMI shouldn't cause any problems.

One weird thing is that I was able to run Passmark with both DVI and HDMI plugged in and it has tests that open in Full-screen mode. I remember reading something at one time about games "forcing" full screen (or something along those lines) so I am assuming that might be what is causing the issue but that is a complete guess.

So my question is if this is a known problem (i.e.- both DVI and HDMI can't be plugged in while playing a game unless you are actually using both). And if not, does anyone know how I may be able to get it to work properly or any potential workarounds. It will be kind of a bummer if I have to shut down and plug the HDMI cable in every time I want to watch something off my PC on the TV.

Thanks!

 

[trm8r]

My primary monitor is connected with a dual-link DVI cable and my secondary(tv) is connected with HDMI. Mine are set up as extended displays in CCC and windows control panel, windows shows the primary and secondary swaped for some reason. I've used dual displayes since I had a 9700Pro( now 7950) without any problems. Sure is nice to have a cheat-sheet, I mean documentation, open on the secondary.
If your card has a second DVI port, try using it. AMD cards used to have more outputs than could be simultaneously used. Something about several ports sharing some thingy in the card. I believe HDMI is hot swappable so no need to shut down.
Using two displays will cause your card to idle faster and Flash Player will lock your card at 500 MHz. So either close your browser or kill FlashPlayerPlugin in task manager before gaming.

 

[boswbr25]

Wow, I can't believe it was that simple. I just changed the "Screen Resolution" setting to "Extend Desktop" and now it works. I thought that the game would try to split between my monitor and TV if I set it that way but I guess not.

Thanks for the help.

In case anyone else reads this with a similar problem, one other thing I did (not sure if it was part of the solution or not) was to turn off "Enable Graphics Overdrive" in the AMD Control Center because I was also using Asus GPU Tweak. I dk if this was causing problems as well since both programs were attempting to do the same thing.

 

[boswbr25]

Best answer selected by boswbr25.