3 Monitor Setup (VGA/DVI/VGA) with MSI 650 Ti ?

[wakeboarder3780]

I feel like this is a stupid question but I'm having trouble assessing whether it's possible for me to hookup a triple monitor setup with 2 vga monitors and 1 DVI monitor.

The use case is not for gaming, for gaming I would expect to only have the game running on the center DVI monitor and the side monitors would still show the desktop so I'm not concerned with video card horsepower from a gaming perspective.

The video card in question has an hdmi, dvi, and vga plug. Obviously I can plug in the matching plugs but am then left with an "hdmi -> vga" situation. Knowing that hdmi is digital and vga is analog leaves me wondering if this is even possible. If I found a converter plug I'm curious if all 3 monitors will actually display appropriately (I know sometimes with vga connections you can get "blurry" text.

Can anyone provide guidance? Has anyone successfully hooked up 3 monitors to this specific card? I am willing to buy different monitors only as a last resort but the end goal is to have a 3 monitor setup where all screens display text clearly (for development). My mobo does not have integrated video

TIA

 

[nukemaster]

Unfortunately, you may need to get a DVI or HDMI to VGA converter. It will HAVE to be active because as you mention DVI/HDMI are digital.

Recent cards no longer support 2 VGA screens from what I can see.

Look at the DVI port, is it DVI-I or DVI-D. DVI-D does NOT support DVI->VGA adapters. This is why the converter is needed.

Note the extra pins on the left side of the DVI-I. It combined DVI-A(analog) and DVI-D(digital into one plug). Most cards use DVI-D to prevent passive adapters(they would not work either way on a DVI-D port) from being used.

Note the single DVI-I and DVI-D on this card(one VGA screen only with adapter.).

HDMI and be adapted to DVI(digital only) without issues(passive cable or adapter).

What is the model of your 650 ti? Also what is the resolution on the screens you are using. 1920 x 1200 is the max for single link DVI and most hdmi -> dvi passive adapters.

 

[wakeboarder3780]

On the video card and monitor both are DVI-D (Dual Link) connectors. I'm missing something though, because I'm not sure how that is relevant so please let me know what I'm missing! Here is what how I planned on connecting things:

Video Card:         Connector:             Monitor:
DVI-D (dual)   ->   DVI Cable          ->   DVI-D (dual)
VGA            ->   VGA Cable          ->   VGA
HDMI           ->   Some converter?    ->   VGA

So from my perspective it should be trivial to hook up the dvi slot to the dvi monitor, the vga slot to the vga monitor, but then I'd need to buy some sort of converter to go from hdmi slot to vga monitor.

You mentioned I would need to buy an "active" converter. I assume you simply mean "dont buy a cable, buy a converter that actually does the signal conversion. If I'm wrong on that assumption please let me know.

You also mentioned modern video cards only support one vga slot. Does this mean even with an active converter the triple monitor setup would not work? I'm totally fine buying a converter if that is what's necessary. I just want to make sure I get the appropriate part and don't end up with blurry results.

To put a concrete example, if I bought this converter would the setup work? Is there an artificial limitation the video card might have such as "I will only let you run 2 monitors of the 3 plugs"?

Thank you so much for your prompt and informative feedback!

Edit:
Sorry I did not see your other questions!
My video card is model N650TI-1GD5/V1

The DVI monitor (SyncMaster 206 NW): 1680 x 1050
The 2 VGA monitors (both SyncMaster 710N): 1280x1024

 

[nukemaster]

The reason asking about DVI-I vs DVI-D is because if a company happened to make a 650 ti that could run 2 VGA screens, the DVI port may have been a DVI-I port. as an example older cards like the 5770 from AMD could run 2 VGA screens at once.

I am trying to cover ALL ways you can get what you want.

When an active adapter is used, video card will seethe VGA screen as a DVI/HDMI screen. so the card will work with 3 screens that way.

You are 100% right about active adapters. When AMD first had its eyefinity, too many users tried to use passive adapters without success(This was display port and not HDMI, but same applies).

The reviews do seem to indicate that to be an actual active converter, that should work for you. Check out the reviews to be more sure, some users seem to have got micro or mini hdmi plugs on the adapter(thats not good) and some also listed it not working up to expectations.

The real shame with this is parts that ship from overseas take forever and also are most times not even worth sending back.

While this is something that can be done, part selection is critical to get good image(I only have a single VGA screen so can not even test these cheap adapters in your configuration.).

Also note that these adapters in most cases will NOT allow HD-DVD/Bluray to play on the VGA screen due to a lack of HDCP.

 

[wakeboarder3780]

That makes sense, now I'm tracking with your line of thought. I'm not concerned with the blu-ray content my purposes for the two secondary monitors is purely to provide documentation while I code or perhaps displaying simple video from youtube or something similar. I definitely appreciate all your help on this and I am certainly open to a different converter. I simply grabbed the first active converter I saw and linked it for sake of discussion. If you have any suggestions on a solid converter I don't mind paying a little bit more for it. I was also concerned about quality at a price like that. I've been looking around at converters today a bit and have yet to find one that appears solid in it's reviews.

 

[nukemaster]

One of the problems with reviews is the users reviewing as well.

I see reviews for usb hubs saying that it would not power the external hard drive on XXX computer. Like they expected a hub(bus powered) was going to somehow give them more power than the usb port it was plugged into. Instant negative review from user error.

Or in the case of your device, some users with issues connecting it to a cable box. Well HDCP(depending on your provider) not working may be the cause.

Or some of the best ones are for external enclosures.

5.25 inch external usb 3.0 enclosure
No 3.5 adapter(just because it looks different)
Could not install by 5.24 inch drive because of a metal plate(that is the adapter.)
Does not play bluray, chipset calls it self HL-DT something(well HL-DT something is the bluray drive from LG, NOT the chipset)

All users who rate them selves as HIGH on tech knowledge.

Anyway, It is a bit of a gamble on way or another because these devices are rarely used, You do not find reviews on sites like Tomshardware/ect.

Sorry to say, It has been many years since I have needed an active converter and back then it was the size of an external hard drive or bigger and even needed software to work.

2 funny reviews for a product

Spoiler

 

[wakeboarder3780]

Could not install by 5.24 inch drive because of a metal plate(that is the adapter.)

That one was my favorite. At $10 I'll roll the dice on this one. It's likely the quality will be so poor the text will be blurry but we'll see. Again kudos for all the help on this one. Hopefully I can get a working solution with decent quality. It would certainly be nice to get some use out of these monitors I just have laying around. I'm a bit sentimental about the two vga monitors, I did all my college coding with those badboys.

 

[nukemaster]

Let me know how the adapter works.

 

[wakeboarder3780]

I ended up buying this particular flavor:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PLL4CK/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am absolutely convinced this exact same converter is made by some offshore manufacturing shop and re-branded as many other brands to give themselves better chances of getting more marketshare. I personally found this exact same looking converter under the list of 5 different brand names with slight variances in white marking on the box.

The converter "works" in that it does active signal conversion but the quality is abysmal. The text displayed is certainly blurry. Even if you weren't looking at text and looking at pictures I can clearly see the softness from the blur in my background image. I would not recommend this to anyone unless the use case was just a quick and dirty where clarity was absolutely unnecessary. There are also some artifacts that run horizontally every 5 seconds or so if you look close.

I am personally not impressed at all and will be searching for a different solution. I will be returning this if amazon will take it back - terrible quality, just terrible.

 

[nukemaster]

Can you try to see if the overscan/underscan options on your video card help any?

It sucks that they even sell stuff that bad.