I need some help from the clever computer people on here...

I've got a windows 7 machine and I'm trying to connect 4 monitors to it.

I've got a new video card with 3 connections on it. A DVI (24 + 5) and 2 further ballens which plug into the card - ATI Firepro V4800.

I've successfully got 2 screens working, one from the on board card and the other from the DVI 25+5 port.... perfect !

But for some reason, the other two screens which are connected to the ballens via a DVI 24 +1 (the DVI connectors with the single connector) - these ones eBay Item don't want to play ball.

The two ballens are active and passive respectively.

Now, if I plug a DVI to HDMI adapter into the active ballen, It displays the content on an HDMI screen. However, all my monitors are VGA and they're all matching so I don't want to change them - they don't have an HDMI connector in them.

I've done a google and reinstalled the software as someone suggests and it STILL doesn't work....

The only thing I can think of is the DVI 24+1 adapters I purchased from ebay are either active or passive or just not the right thing ???

Any thoughts ?

I'm guessing I need a DVI to VGA converter ?

Am I right in thinking that your trying to connect old style VGA monitors to 'Display port' outlets on the gpu ?


VGA is analog, not all of the newer style ports supply an analog signal, this is where you'd need a expensive digital to analog active converter - but that's just spending lots of money to make the picture quality worse....

Are you sure your screens don't have a digital input ?


(at least that's my understanding - raspberry PI's have this issue and its now common for new GPU's to only support analog on one port)

[Edited on 3/2/2016 by mcerd1]

What the hell is a ballen?

A balun maybe?

quote:

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Originally posted by SteveWalker
A balun maybe?

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looking at the datasheet



https://www.amd.com/Documents/ati-firepro-v4800-datasheet.pdf

I'm going to guess that the only port that will provide vga is going to be the dvi port.

the specs don't say clearly enough how many vga / analog feeds there are.

Confusing post (especially the 'ballens'!) but I think this is the situation:

You want to drive two analog VGA monitors from the two Displayport outputs
You have a passive and an active adapter to convert the Displayport signal to DVI-D
You have some suspiciously cheap eBay adapters to convert the DVI-D outputs to VGA

I think the problem is the last link in the chain, those ropey looking DVI-D/VGA adpaters. DVI-D is a purely digital connection, to convert to VGA the adapter requires a DAC which makes them relatively expensive. DVI-I includes analog and digital connections, to convert to a VGA connector requires only a very cheap passive adapter. The eBay adapters look far too small and far too cheap to include the required DAC, so I'm pretty certain they won't.

I think that you will need this type of adapter to get the VGA signals you need for your monitor.

https://www.sapphirepgs.com/productdetail.asp?IDno=7&tag=d ownload&lang=eng

has the manual - don't know why I couldn't find it on the amd site.. probably just didn't look hard enough.

it says for DP to VGA you need to use an active converter. not just one of those cheapo one, which only work for DVI-I (which as states has digital and analog)

so I agree with the above post.

never used a active converter so can't recommend one.

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeRJ
Confusing post (especially the 'ballens'!) but I think this is the situation:

You want to drive two analog VGA monitors from the two Displayport outputs
You have a passive and an active adapter to convert the Displayport signal to DVI-D
You have some suspiciously cheap eBay adapters to convert the DVI-D outputs to VGA

I think the problem is the last link in the chain, those ropey looking DVI-D/VGA adpaters. DVI-D is a purely digital connection, to convert to VGA the adapter requires a DAC which makes them relatively expensive. DVI-I includes analog and digital connections, to convert to a VGA connector requires only a very cheap passive adapter. The eBay adapters look far too small and far too cheap to include the required DAC, so I'm pretty certain they won't.

I think that you will need this type of adapter to get the VGA signals you need for your monitor.

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