AMD 6970 cabling frustration

[Accolonian]

I need help figuring out how to cable this system:

I have 2 x 6970 graphic cards in my new supercomputer.
They are set up in crossfire.

Both have 2 x DVI, 1 HDMI and 2 Minidisplay ports

I have the following screens/TVs

2 x Samsung Syncmaster monitors (1920x1080)
HDMI and DVI input

1 x Sony Bravia (1080p)
HDMI Input

What I want is to use the 2 syncmasters a side by side monitors. The Sony TV goes in the other end of the room as a normal TV. I want to watch movies on the TV, that runs from the PC, so the connection to the TV should be via HDMI for sound. I was thinking of the tv as a 2nd extend, so I could just drag the player to the screen, maximise and watch.

I had this setup running yesterday

Primary: 1st Syncmaster in top graphic card DVI slot
1st Extend: 2nd Syncmaster in top graphic card DVI slot
2nd Extend: Syny TV i bottom graphic card HDMI slot

But today when I restarted, the crossfire kicked in and now I cant use the ports of the lower card. Moving the TV to the top cards HDMI slot does not help. It says I can now only have 1 extension. Either the 2nd monitor or the TV, but not both.

Now, what to do? I read somewhere that on this card you need to use one of the minidisplay ports if you want 3 screens? But before investing in those I would like to have it confirmed.

Also, If I want sound, I need HDMI, not Minidisplay, right? So how to connect both TV and one monitor with HDMI when only 1 HDMI remains using crossfire (The monitor has built in speakers and I don't care about the sound quality)

Advise, please?

 

[blade061188]

For 3 monitors on one card you do need to use mini display ports unfortunately.

However, you should be able to get a mini display port to HDMI adapter, although it will have to be an active adapter.

I don't believe you will be able to split the sound, meaning the sound from anything you have running on your PC will come out of the speakers from both the TV and the monitor.

 

[purple stain]

When your using crossfire you can only use the ports of the top(primary)card.

You only use the Displayports if your using Eyefinity.

 

[Accolonian]

Active adaptor, does that just mean that it can tranfer sound also or is there more to it?

 

[blade061188]

An active adapter has a converter in it to change the Displayport signal to a dvi or HDMI signal. A passive adapter is just a cable with different ends and the GPU converts the signal. In order to run 3 monitors that are on the same card, one of the monitors has to be on an active adapter.