HD 6970 will recognizes willl not run 4 Monitors

[newbierookie2011]

Hello,

I just build a new rig but unable to have 4 monitors run on the HD 6970 GPU.

The monitors are recognized but only 2 monitors can run at one time. When I try to duplicate/extend a third one, one of the active ones is disabled.

When I try to extend it gives me a pop up message- " To extend the desktop, a desktop or display must be disabled"

When I try to duplicate one of the active monitors, I get the pop up error message, "To duplicate the display, the desktop will be disabled"

I have been to AMD website and downloaded the latest drives.

My build has the following components
I have
*Radeon XFX HD 6970 2 GB Graphics Card
*ASUS BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS 12X Blu-ray Internal Burner with Disc Encryption, Black
*Corsair Memory Vengeance 16 Dual Channel Kit DDR3 1600 MHz 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9
*OCZ Technology 120 GB Agility 3 SSD- 3G SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive AGT3-25SAT3-120G
*Western Digital Caviar Green 2.5 TB SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Drive -
*Corsair Professional Series Gold 1200-Watt 80 *Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
*Intel Core i7-2600K Processor
*4 Dell 24 inch monitors 3 Dell 2408 WFP and 1 Dell U2410

My connections are through the 2 DVI ports and the 2 Mini HDMI which have DVI adapters.

Please Help!

 

[SinisterSalad]

Do you mean miniDisplayPort, and not miniHDMI? AMD has a maximum of 2 displays with "legacy" connections. Those include VGA, DVI and HDMI. To get more than two, the other two need to be connected with DisplayPort. You can use adapters to go from DisplayPort to DVI to get the other two connected. If, by chance, you don't have DisplayPort connections on your card, you're out of luck. To my knowledge, though, most of the 69xx cards had DisplayPort connections.

 

[megamanx00]

You need to use "Active" display port adapters, like this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814998051

 

[megamanx00]

There are passive adapters but those will not allow you to use more than two monitors on your new Radeon card. You could also just get display port monitors but that's expensive 😛

 

[newbierookie2011]

Yes I mean Mini Displayport and two Dvi ports. As you can tell, I am a newbie- Please include links to what I need to buy. Also, please how do I know which are legacy connections and which are not?

Thanks for your help.

 

[dontcrosthestreams]

ya dont buy a mini dp to vga either.......hdmi or dvi to mini dp. I bought an accel one for 25$ on amazon. my 6950 2gb is running 3 screen perfectly now.

 

[newbierookie2011]

I have 2 Mini display ports to DVI from Startech.com- are these useless?
Please let me know which ports are legacy and where to connect the monitors.

Thanks

 

[megamanx00]

If they are passive adapters then yeah, they are useless for what you want.

 

[phait103]

You need to connect like this:
Two monitors on DVI or HDMI or w/e combo of those
Two monitors on mini-displayport to DVI (active adapters only), HDMI (active only), or VGA (does not need to be labeled "active" for this to work)
Some people say DP to VGA lowers your quality, but I'm not using HD monitors so it doens't bother me. And yes I'm using a $20 displayport to vga adapter without any problems
Now, the "active" adapters, some of the expensive ones have a USB connection that it uses to draw the power, but some take the power straight off of the DP port, so you will need to make sure your adapter says "active" on it, like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200944

 

[newbierookie2011]

Thank ya'll for your help- I guess I have to order the active adpters!

 

[SinisterSalad]

This is what I got for my 3rd monitor.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-MA-AP01-ND1K-Active-Mini-DisplayPort-DVI-Adapter-/170800345558?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c47e71d6#ht_6379wt_905

Should just need 2 of these!