Member Avatar for JMartin72

My job is completely virtual. I need dual monitors, with seperate dispays, for the next level in promotions. I have two of them. Yes, they are slightly different in size.
I bought a graphics card; Diamond Stealth S60 RADEON 7000 - 64 MB-PCI dual monitor support. The box say 98, ME, 2000, and XP compatible. I have Vista. The salesman says it will work.
I hooked monitor one up with vga, and monitor 2 with vga on a dvi adaptor. Both turn on, graphics on monitor 1 (the original)are funny looking-like the resolution is off. But they are fine on monitor 2( the slightly smaller one). I connected both to the new card, nothing to the onboard -I get nothing when I used both, just black screens.
I go to right click, personalize, display settings.. there is no #2 there. Just 1?
Both monitors show the same thing. Also, some of my resolution options are gone.

I found a previous post, the replier asked the poster to go to a site, download get a file and post it. It has all of my PC BIOS and graphics, etc.
Mines BIG, it didnt look like what the others had posted. So Im not sure I should post just yet, until asked to do so.
I have Windows Vista, Compaq Presario sr5302FH, I have no clue what I'm doing.
I put the disk in and it said " not compatible. Installation is aborting" and it stopped. I went to their website and wasnt sure if I neeed to download a driver for vista or xp.. or maybe I just don't have a compatible card or computer?

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Following 's report and 's suggestion, the behavior described points to three common causes: driver/OS incompatibility, a system still using the integrated graphics instead of the add-in adapter, and a connector/adapter signal mismatch (analog vs digital). The right method is to isolate components first — monitor, cable/adapter, slot and driver — then apply the smallest change that fixes detection or resolution problems.

Practical isolation steps (in order): power down and boot with only one monitor physically attached to the expansion card to confirm that card output works; swap monitors to verify each panel is functional; inspect firmware/BIOS and set the primary display to the expansion slot or disable the integrated graphics so only one graphics source is active; in the operating system, use Device Manager to remove generic or legacy display drivers and then install the vendor driver that exactly matches the OS edition and bitness.

Connector caution: passive converters only pass an analog signal when the GPU port actually exposes analog pins. If a passive adapter is used on a digital-only port the second display will be mirrored, undetected, or limited to a single low resolution. An active digital-to-analog converter or a native analog output is required in those cases.

Other notes: avoid mixing drivers from different GPU vendors on the same machine; if a legacy add-in card lacks supported drivers for the installed OS, replacing the adapter with a supported dual-head card or a small USB video adapter is often the fastest, most reliable solution. Isolating hardware and installing the correct driver resolves most single-display or missing-resolution cases.

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Member Avatar for techsheaven

Dual monitors can be tricky. Both adapters need to be compatible with a dual configuration, AND with each other. You could try updating your BIOS, but I would doubt you will find success in that. The best thing to do is to disable the on-board video in the BIOS and install a dual-head graphics adapter, or another Diamond Stealth S60 RADEON 7000 - 64 MB-PCI adapter (assuming you have another open slot).

Member Avatar for JMartin72

I got impatient and just bought a new PC with a dual graphics card already built in. Works like a charm! HDMI on one and DVI on the other. Not as cheap but it was just in time. As I was setting it up, I was offered the promotion from work. Perfect timing.
I appreciate your reply though :-) Thank you.

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