Second Monitor Not Recognised

[Sammagoat]

For some reason, my computer is only recognising the existence of one of my monitors, plugged in through the HDMI port. It's not picking up the second at all, through both the standard Windows 8.1 control panel, as well as through the AMD Catalyst Control Center.

I own two Samsung monitors. One is connected via HDMI port (this is the recognised one), and one via a VGA to DVI-D adapter, as the second monitor is older, cheaper, and only has a VGA connector. My graphics card is a 2GB Gigabyte Radeon R9 270. My motherboard is an ASRock 990Fx Killer motherboard, and it doesn't have onboard graphics.

I have tried updating my drivers, trying a different VGA cable, and running only the DVI-D monitor, with the HDMI one unplugged. I've also looked through the manual for my gpu, and there's nothing in there to troubleshoot this issue. I HAVE heard that DVI-D does not convert to analog, but I haven't tested if that's true. Is there anything else that I haven't tried yet, or do I simply have the wrong component or a dud adapter?

 

[pm4]

Yes it's true that DVI-D to VGA won't work.
What you need is DVI-I to VGA. Your card should have HDMI, DP, DVI-D and DVI-I output so get DVI-I to VGA adapter and use other output which support DVI-I and it should work.

Reason why it do not work is that it need analog signal which is transfered through those 4 extra pins in DVI-I connector.

 

[rhysiam]

Does your card have two DVI ports? It might be literally as simple as using the other DVI port.

Many cheap adapters that advertise themselves as "DVI-D -> VGA" are actually standard DVI-I to VGA adapters. It's likely you've got one of those. Put it in a DVI-I port and it should just work. Only one of your DVI ports will include the analogue signal for VGA (called your "DVI-I" port), so swap them over and see.

If not you'll need to start troubleshooting. Use the graphics card manual to find out which DVI port is "DVI-I" and make sure you only use that one. Check your monitor works and try a different DVI->VGA adapter.

 

[Sammagoat]

Does your card have two DVI ports? It might be literally as simple as using the other DVI port.

Many cheap adapters that advertise themselves as "DVI-D -> VGA" are actually standard DVI-I to VGA adapters. It's likely you've got one of those. Put it in a DVI-I port and it should just work. Only one of your DVI ports will include the analogue signal for VGA (called your "DVI-I" port), so swap them over and see.

If not you'll need to start troubleshooting. Use the graphics card manual to find out which DVI port is "DVI-I" and make sure you only use that one. Check your monitor works and try a different DVI->VGA adapter.

The card does have two DVI ports - a DVI-I and a DVI-D. In that case, it's just a matter of me not knowing what I was doing, and buying the wrong adapter. Fairly sure I can't plug the DVI-D adapter into the DVI-I plug, because it's missing the extra pins, but I'll try anyway. If it doesn't work, I'll buy a new adapter, and that should fix my problem. Thanks!

 

[rhysiam]

The card does have two DVI ports - a DVI-I and a DVI-D. In that case, it's just a matter of me not knowing what I was doing, and buying the wrong adapter. Fairly sure I can't plug the DVI-D adapter into the DVI-I plug, because it's missing the extra pins, but I'll try anyway. If it doesn't work, I'll buy a new adapter, and that should fix my problem. Thanks!

If you genuinely have a DVI-D to VGA adapter then it will plug into a DVI-I or -D port and should work in either. It will convert the digital signal (which both -I and -D ports include) to an analogue signal for VGA. The reason I'm sceptical is because that should already be working.

Still, the basic DVI-I to VGA adapters are just a couple of bucks and while it's not guaranteed to get things working (it is possible your issues are elsewhere), it's by far the most likely solution.

 

[pm4]

The card does have two DVI ports - a DVI-I and a DVI-D. In that case, it's just a matter of me not knowing what I was doing, and buying the wrong adapter. Fairly sure I can't plug the DVI-D adapter into the DVI-I plug, because it's missing the extra pins, but I'll try anyway. If it doesn't work, I'll buy a new adapter, and that should fix my problem. Thanks!

If you genuinely have a DVI-D to VGA adapter then it will plug into a DVI-I or -D port and should work in either. It will convert the digital signal (which both -I and -D ports include) to an analogue signal for VGA. The reason I'm sceptical is because that should already be working.

Still, the basic DVI-I to VGA adapters are just a couple of bucks and while it's not guaranteed to get things working (it is possible your issues are elsewhere), it's by far the most likely solution.

It will be mostlikely something like this (link to amazon)

Close to bottom of page is this note:
"Male DVI-D to Female VGA Adapter. The Male DVI-D to Female VGA Adapter is designed for digital-to-analog converter machine only. And it can not change digital data to analog data directly."

Many people buy this hoping it will work but later they find its useless and they need to get DVI-I to VGA