Issues, Workarounds & Localization

A month ago I got myself a new Gigabyte Nvidia 680 GTX , upgraded from a 560 with a faulty fan;

So my problem is that I can't get dual monitors to work with my new card, it used to work perfectly with the old card but now my system is not even registering the second monitor on the DVI-D display port, not on the Control Panel nor the device manager neither. The card comes with one (1) DVI-I port and one (1) DVI-D port, at first I didn't have an adapter for the DVI-D, so just to be safe I ordered both a single link and dual link adapters for it, tried them on, with "NO SIGNAL" attempted with both monitors on the same port. It was a great experience using EVE with two monitors and I need the functionality back, any clue whats going on?

Nvidia 680 GTX
Intel I7 3.40GHz
16gb ram
Windows 7 64 bit

unlike the DVI-I ports, DVI-D has no analog signal, are you using a DVI -> VGA adapter? is the monitor a 100% digital DVI one?

if you are using an LCD screen that needs the analog signal, or a CRT monitor or old LCD that needs a VGA adapter, it wont work. to make things simple, if you plug an analog monitor to a DVI port, only the 4 big pins will be used for video signal. so the DVI-D port can't possible give an analog signal, it has no pins.

if your monitors both work on the first DVI port, but wont work on the second one it means they need the analog signal. (yes, even if they are digital, some manufacturers are stupid and cheap)

what you need, is to use the Display port. (the other type of connector in the back that's not the HDMI port), that port outputs digital and analog signals, but... its passive.

so, if you buy a plain displayport -> DVI adapter it still wont work... you need an active output.

they look like this:

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRWfrWCILLkGb06yjSgl2WW7glS83nzwtHcDYKL_g2LqW9iK2qtwA

this one plugs on the display port, and also into any usb port, but only to draw power. it can set you back a good 100usd.

there's a different type of active adapters (much cheaper), that don't need to use an extra cable to draw power. those look like a regular passive Displayport -> DVI adapter, but they are labeled as "active", the most common one is the one sapphire sells, i have one and it works just fine, but the way they work is by eating up on the redundant channels the dual channel DVI ports use, so they are Displayport -> Single channel DVI-I adapters, unlike the expensive ones that are Displayport -> Dualchannel DVI-I.

the difference between dual channel and single channel wont be noticeable, unless you want to use the 3d mode that some cards can output to 3d monitors, plan on using resolutions above 4k, or you plan on having your monitor more than 12 feet away from your PC.

this is the one from sapphire:

http://3dvision-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/sapphire-active-displayport-to-dvi-adapter-690x759.jpg

there's a very, very small color temperature difference between dual channel and single channel, if you work with photography or video you might want to keep that in mind. it can easily be compensated whoever.