Price vs Quality/Reliability

foxtrapper · Post by **foxtrapper** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 3:13 pm

I won't disagree that you might not have killed your card. But, fwiw, in my mucking around, I also lost display on one monitor, or the other, and occassionally both. For the card has settings that are not compatable with my monitors, and should I select one of those settings, I can get a screen of flashing lines, or a blank screen, and sometimes the computer would beep at me. And this is without getting into hz rates and such, this is just aspect ratio settings.

Might you be able to install the card from the slow machine and set the wiz-bang card to vga, and start over?

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 4:02 pm

foxtrapper wrote:I won't disagree that you might not have killed your card. But, fwiw, in my mucking around, I also lost display on one monitor, or the other, and occassionally both. For the card has settings that are not compatable with my monitors, and should I select one of those settings, I can get a screen of flashing lines, or a blank screen, and sometimes the computer would beep at me. And this is without getting into hz rates and such, this is just aspect ratio settings.

Might you be able to install the card from the slow machine and set the wiz-bang card to vga, and start over?

Now that might be a good approach. One that I would never have thought of. I gotta think on this. At the rate I have been going, I could kill still another computer and then I would not be able to communicate with you at all.

I gotta go look in the "I might need this some day box". I might even have a video card from an older computer that could be sacrificed (if I have the video driver or can find it online).

Thanks for the ideas. Man am I ever having fun.

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 4:53 pm

Have ya tried putting the card back in the same slot?

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Sun Dec 12, 2010 2:33 pm

Without going back through this thread to single out those who gave me some good advise that I did not immediately recognize as such...I now have my dual monitor capability back (without spending any money). All I had to do was listen to the advise I was being given.

I put the big black beast back and hooked it up to the two monitors. When it come up there was some sort of message about no boot file. To recover, I followed the on screen directions and ....you guessed it....I have my dual monitors back. Oh how I have missed that capability.

I can't begin to exactly explain what has transpired but I don't need to. It works:). No money changed hands:):).

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Sun Dec 12, 2010 3:17 pm

dusty wrote:Without going back through this thread to single out those who gave me some good advise that I did not immediately recognize as such...I now have my dual monitor capability back (without spending any money). All I had to do was listen to the advise I was being given.

I put the big black beast back and hooked it up to the two monitors. When it come up there was some sort of message about no boot file. To recover, I followed the on screen directions and ....you guessed it....I have my dual monitors back. Oh how I have missed that capability.

I can't begin to exactly explain what has transpired but I don't need to. It works:). No money changed hands:):).

Hooray! Now you can use both eyes at once! I unnerstand! I was using two monitors back in the early? eighties(back then it was one cga monitor and one monochrome monitor). I was considered a weirdo then also! It was nice to be able to look at more than thing at a time even if only one was 'active' at a time. Oh! remember the good old days when there was one 'window' per monitor!

burkhome · Post by **burkhome** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:27 am

I am a self professed computer idiot. Just to demonstrate this...why do you need 2 moniters? I can barely see all I need to on one.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:24 am

First of all I do not NEED two monitors. What can be done with two monitors can also be done on one monitor with multiple windows open simultaneously.

The only tangible advantage of dual monitors is that I can be online in two forums simultaneously or be in "My Pictures" on one monitor while posting to the forum on the other as examples. To some, this might not even be an advantage.

I have gotten used to having two monitors and FEEL handicapped without the second monitor.

It is sorta like having multiple Shopsmiths when you can only work on one at a time. Definitely not needed but sure is nice.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:19 pm

burkhome wrote:I am a self professed computer idiot. Just to demonstrate this...why do you need 2 moniters? I can barely see all I need to on one.

Tis a matter of 'real estate'. Two monitors have twice(assuming they are identical) the area(pixels) that only one has. Yes windows allows more than one window at a time to be displayed at a time and allows them to not cover each other up, but if the windows be large and the pixels small(high resolution), us old fogeys have a difficult time seeing what is there. I have 1920 x 1200 in a 15.6" screen. Things just get too small to comfortably be seen at times.(they are quite crisp however!) I do have a second monitor with 1200? x 1080 resolution that comes in quite handy when the 'main screen' becomes too confused. The desktop extends to include the second monitor. It can be oriented on any of the 4 sides of the 'main' monitor(l,r a,b).

Now if you have a monstrous monitor with humongous pixel count then you do not need the extra 'real estate'.

For the rest of us, dual monitors works good enough!

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:35 pm

This computer, which I had given to me, actually came with two video cards each being able to support two monitors. Since I have never had four monitors, I was never able to experience just what that would be like. Besides, my desk is not large enough for four monitors and I can not afford to buy four flat screens (nor do I want to).

One of the video cards has now gone belly up (I think) so I no longer have that problem.

The fellow who donated this monstrous machine to me, was dissatisfied with resolution and sound quality. He is big into model trains and train stations and it wasn't doing the trick. He purchased an entire new system for his rail yard. It was delivered by two gentlemen to help set it up.

I feel pretty fortunate having his cast offs.

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:22 pm

I wanted two monitors back when I was doing genealogy research about 23 hours a day.

I didn't need to transfer big blocks of information very often. Mostly it was just names, dates, locations etc. At first I just kept my family tree software on an off-line computer and did most of my research on the one on-line. I could just read from the on-line one and enter it on the off-line one.
Later I sat up a LAN and used it to transfer a lot of stuff.
Now I just do my on-line research on this 17" wide-screen laptop while sitting in my Lazyboy and if I need more I pick up my IBM Think-pad laptop sitting here beside me and when I turn it on it is instantly connected to my little WiFi network. I can connect 5 items but I don't think we have ever been on with more than 4.
I do most of that research on Ancestry.com these days and just use tab browsing to shift. Now I do genealogy more in spurts and bits and pieces. No huge marathon sessions.
Most of what I do is not very efficient... but we form these habits and...