Triple monitor R9 280x Toxic 2x Active mini displayport to dvi adapters(SAPPHIRE)

Dear people,

I've ran into a problem.
I've made a whole document about it. I did this because I couldn't do some things and otherwise this forum would get an extreme mess. It describes all steps I took before I posted this on this forum.
Link to dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xdl6q279ej7eip1/My triple monitor problem.pdf?dl=0
Or link to Google: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9DbrEN5HoDvVXhMaFN1aE9VU2c
NOTE: I’ve made this file really big so you can understand what I went through and I hope that you can help me!

So, thank you in advance for reading all of this!
I hope that you maybe know a solution or know something that helps me.
All help is appreciated!

TLDR:

Last week I ordered 2x the Sapphire Active mini DP to SL-DVI Adapter.
My graphics card is the Sapphire R9 280x Toxic(http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/350989/sapphire-r9-280x-3gb-gddr5-toxic/specificaties/).
This card has the following connections:
1 x Dual-Link DVI-I
1 x Single-Link DVI-D
1 x HDMI
2 x Mini-DisplayPort

I've 3 monitors with DVI connections. The LG Flatron E2242 monitor(http://www.lg.com/us/support-product/lg-E2242T-BN), the Acer P235H monitor(http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/240883/acer-p235hbd-zwart/specificaties/) and the Acer GN246HL monitor(http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/382442/acer-gn246hl-(um-punt-fg6ee-punt-b06)-zwart/specificaties/).
I ordered these active adapters because I want to use these 3 monitors all at the same time.

I have connected the 2 Sapphire Active mini DP to SL-DVI on the mini-displayport connections of my graphics card. I saw that the package of the cables that they have an DVI-D connection. But after I opened the packages I saw that the cables have DVI-I connections.

I know that the DVI-I connection carries Digital and analog signal while the DVI-D connection only carries digital signal.

I have connected the cables as following:
The mini-displayport from my graphics card with the Active mini DP to SL-DVI adapters. On the DVI-I connection of the adapters I plugged in DVI-D cables. These cables go to the DVI-D inputs of my LG Flatron E2242 & Acer P235H monitors.
Now, when I go to the Windows screen configuration both monitors connected to the adapters won't show up. I find this very strange because this should mean that either my never used mini-displayports are both broken or the adapters are both broken. But it also could be that I perhaps made the wrong connections?

Do you guys know how to get this working?
I'm thinking of retouring the adapter cables because I'm not able to find a solution.
I'm getting really desperate.

Thanks in advance!

Rody

 

Hi!

Very comendable error description :thumbup:

1) can you try enabling high performance profile in power options of windows and restart? (you use windows 7, 8 or 10?)

2) can you try connecting in another fashion without the active adapters if 1) didnt change anything?

 

Hey,

Thank you for your fast respons!
I'm running Windows Enterprise 64-bit. In the configuration screen menu and than energy management I've high performance mode always enabled. But just to be sure I restarted and nothing changed
What do you mean by another fashion without active adapters? I don't have any monitor with displayport nor do I have an displayport cable. That's why I thought converting the signal with these active adapters to DVI would work for my monitors. So I unfortunately can't test if my mini display ports are working with a normal displayport connection.

Kind regards,

Rody

 

Can you attach 2 monitors with dual link DVI and the third monitor with HDMI?

 

No I can't because my graphics card has only one dual link dvi port. But I can connect 1 screen with hdmi, ome with dvi-d and one with dual link dvd-d but in this setup I can only use 2 monitors at once.

 

Ok another way towards it then.
If we take into consideration that maybe as you said both active adapters are really broken. Did you try out attaching only one monitor with one active adapter? Does that work?

 

Thank you for your patient and thinking along,
but no that also doesn't work. In the PDF file I uploaded to Google/Dropbox I stated all the steps I took. Maybe I overlooked something. Could you look into that?
I've contacted the store where I bought them and they also think that it is very unlikely that they are both broken. I don't think that's the case but they alow me to return them.
But that would fix my problem. I think that it is very strange that my nor my monitor, nor windows nor amd settings interact on it. My monitor when connected goes into power saving mode = standby because it can't see a connection. the orange LED will lit up.
I think that it is somethink in the settings of windows or my videocard.
I will try installing Windows 10 Pro 64-bit instead of Enterprise. I was already planning this because I installed the wrong version which I couldn't activate when windows 10 released. But moving files and reinstalling everything takes time. I am planning to do this wednesday/thursday.
I've send a ticket to Sapphire because the cables and video card are theirs and I hope I get an response over there too.
I also posted this on another forum but I haven't got any answer their yet. You are the only one replying on a forum.
Thank you for that.
Let me know if you have other ideas

 

So the 280x does support 2x DVI + 1x HDMI with a 3 monitor setup over Eyefinity. I just revalidated that which makes me wonder why it doesnt work.
Did you try 2x DVI + 1 HDMI in various combinations already?
And are you setting these up over Eyefinity all the time?

The "ultra low power state" of the cards can be disabled with a program like "MSI Afterburner" or "Sapphire TRIXX". You should do that and then also try again!

 

i disabled ULPS in Sapphire TRIXX, shut my computer down and rebooted. But it can't add the 3th monitor. I have 2 monitors with dvi-d one with hdmi and all running 1920x1080 at 60Hz but I can only enable 2 of them at the same time. It does not alow me to use 3 monitors whatever I do. Whichever monitor I set a primary it won't alow it. I think that my R9 280x Toxic only has 2 chips in it. Only Sapphire Flex cards(http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php&f=66&t=25566) can run triple monitor because they have 3 chips in them I guess. But thats why I bought Active adapters so I have 4 chips now. But the Displayport won't react when I connect them. Even with ULPS off..

 

Well the only thing is you could invest into a 5$ mini dp cable (passive!) and check if it works. Should be worth ... before giving up the whole thing...

 

I don't think that I can buy a passive adapter for 5 euros. I live in the netherlands but I can't find one. All passive adapters I can find are around 20 euros( http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/3359...ort-to-dvi-d-single-link-cable-(passief).html )

 

Just a side question, if I bought a second r9 280x could I then use the videooutputs on the second card and use that to get multiple screens working? How many screens could I get working? 8?

 

I've bought an active Mini Displayport to HDMI adapter but this one also doesn't work. I guess that my miniDP are the problem and not the adapters.
But how do I enable those ports?
I've tried setting windows energie on maximum performance.
I've tried reïnstalling the driver (Radeon Software Version 16.4.1 Crimson)
I've tried installing older drivers (such as AMD Catalyst 14.9 )
I've also reïnstalled whole Windows 10 pro 64-bit but this also wasn't the problem...
Anyone got a suggestion?

 

Well you might try this.
There is a guy who has the exact same card and a triple setup.
And he explains step by step very carefully how to set it up.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1908617/monitors-280x-working.html

If finally that doesn't help then...well... Call AMD customer support :nerd:

 

Hi, I used for a long time an eyefinity system using an r9 280x. The thing is I had monitors with displayport input. I would highly recommend you to lend a monitor with native displayport from a friend so you can really check whether the displayport outputs on your card are faulty or not.

Hope this idea helps,