† ballard Posted March 9, 2013 Report Share Posted March 9, 2013 (edited) I recently got a second monitor. At the moment it's causing me more issues than it's worth. My main monitor is plugged into the dvi port while the second one is plugged into the display port. Whenever I do anything on my second monitor that's plugged into the display port my graphics card shoots up to 25% activity. (This doesn't happen when I do stuff on the main monitor though...) Ever since I've had this second monitor plugged in my graphics card doesn't idle. It stays at its max clock speeds and as you could imagine this makes my computer run hot. I've underclocked my graphics card by a considerable amount just so it would stay at a reasonable temperature. I was using the 12.8 drivers and upgraded to the 13.1 drivers a few minutes ago in hopes of fixing this, but to no avail. I'm honestly at a loss at what to do. Is this normal for a dual monitor setup? What do you guys think is going on? Edit: I've had 2 monitors before, but I don't remember anything like this happening. The only difference was that those monitors were plugged into a vga port and a dvi port. Do you think the display port is the culprit here? I'm currently using an AMD Radeon 7750. Edited March 9, 2013 by ballard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 After researching a bit, I came up with these possibilities: Check your powerplay settings and any other power profile things you can find in the drivers. Are you using an adapter on DP? Some extra load is to be expected when you plug in a second monitor since your graphics card needs to do extra work, however it shouldn't be stuck at full load on idle. It's also true that DP might be trying to send extra data through the graphics card that really doesn't need to be sent (DP can do stuff like stream audio and USB connections), but it's unlikely to cause your card to misbehave. A few threads I read pinned graphics card overheating problems on the adapter which is why I asked the adapter question. It sounds like you have a driver issue causing your graphics card to incorrectly remain at a full load state when 2 monitors are plugged in which is why I suggested you look at the driver settings for powerplay and whatever else there is that AMD has to control your GPU's power consumption. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† ballard Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) I am using an adapter (dp to vga)... while testing a few things I've ran into another problem. I'm not even sure how to explain it XD. When I watch a trailer on steam it causes a horizontal line to go across the monitor (whichever one steam is on) and it scrambles the the whole display if I keep watching it. Even though the other monitor is fine. I have to restart my computer to fix it. I've tried so many drivers from 12.3 all the way to 13.1 and all of them had the same result. This doesn't happen with youtube or netflix. It looks something like this: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=scrambled+monitor&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=xto7UaDJBsXBqAHQ4oDABg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1313&bih=610#imgrc=DR9Axk1QbMVtTM%3A%3B5lKUK0PAmI2oNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F2.bp.blogspot.com%252F__5NzJJrxOug%252FSg63a8QKp9I%252FAAAAAAAAAHY%252Fix9WcKFUJzs%252Fs320%252FScrambledScreen.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstickyworknotes.blogspot.com%252F2009%252F05%252Fvnc-screen-scrambled.html%3B307%3B230 Do you think it would best to just get a new graphics card that has 2 dvi ports in hopes of solving all of this? Edited March 10, 2013 by ballard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnFlower Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 have you tried using the hdmi port instead of the displayport? i would do that before going to buy a new card, even if the cable costs you 30 odd dollars. i don't run multiple monitors, nor do i run an ati graphics card. i have, however, had problems with my nvidia cards not going into the idle state, and spewing out artifacts (in my case, dots instead of lines). my solution was to simply perform a clean install of an older driver, then perform a clean install of the new one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 See if you can get (or borrow) another adapter to see if your adapter is causing the problem. Also, might be an issue with steam videos ._. I never tried watching them full screen lol. No idea ^^;. What was the result of checking the power profiles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroPenguins Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) Underclocking can also lead to those artifacts on your screen. I assumed you undervolted it as well to keep it more cooler. Maybe when you run the steam video it stresses your GPU and your voltage isn't enough, so it causes those weird issues. Edited March 10, 2013 by Ang3lofDarkness Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† ballard Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) I checked the power profiles and it had my settings from the 12.8 drivers. The artifacts started happening with youtube and netflix now. When I unplug the second monitor it doesn't happen and everything is fine. I set the clock speeds back to default. It's strange because now that I did that the gpu clock goes to its idle speeds while the memory clock doesn't. I bumped the fan up to 80% to keep the temperature in check. I left the voltage at default because I was changing the clock speeds so much while I was testing a few things. As I was typing this both monitors flashed black and the gpu activity is staying at 83%. I would try hdmi, but only my main monitor has an hdmi port. The new one only has vga. I could try to get an adapter for my hdmi port though. I've tried so many things. I'm not sure what else to do. I really appreciate the help.I'll see if anyone I know has an hdmi to vga adapter. If not, I'm sure they don't cost too much. Edited March 10, 2013 by ballard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jªvª Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) If you could get me the exact model information on your Radeion 7750 that would be great. Also make sure you don't have codecs conflicting with each other, I had this issue back in the day with my ATI card. The Core Codec, FFDShow, and Flash was my issue which caused my ATI gpu to act like a fool. Edited March 10, 2013 by Jªvª Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† ballard Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) If you could get me the exact model information on your Radeion 7750 that would be great. Also make sure you don't have codecs conflicting with each other, I had this issue back in the day with my ATI card. The Core Codec, FFDShow, and Flash was my issue which caused my ATI gpu to act like a fool. This is my card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102969 Edited March 10, 2013 by ballard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jªvª Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 Did you update via AMDs Driver or Sapphires Driver is the next question? Just asking due to certain companies do certain things with their gpus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† ballard Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) I always use AMDs drivers. Edit: My link doesn't work for me... does it work for you? Edited March 10, 2013 by ballard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jªvª Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 I always use AMDs drivers. Edit: My link doesn't work for me... does it work for you? Yeah the link oddly put the url twice, i just copied the link and fixed it in the address bar. Try utilizing http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1501&psn=&lid=1&leg=0#'>Sapphires download and see if that works Although it dosn't look like it is different (I didn't download it to see if it was) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† ballard Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 I tried the drivers on Sapphires website, and I think they are the same ones that AMD provides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rajurashmi2000 Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 your problem probably is the analog conversion involved in the vga signal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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