Dual monitor, but second screen is black and white?

Retodd33

Retodd33

Retodd33

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18 Aug 2011
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Just finished setting up my first rig, got all the way here, running out of a radeon hd 6870, hdmi into one tv, and a dvi splitter into hmdi for the second tv (Neither tv has Dvi).

But, ones running fine, and the second will only run in black and white. It's in colour at initial start up. And if I switch the tvs, then the other will become black and white, so its not the monitor. When I first plugged it in, it was colour for two seconds, then it went black and white.

Any suggestions? I've got the latest drivers as I only built it yesterday. Any suggestions would be great!
 
Well no, but its coloured when it first turns on. Its just when I log into my profile.

Its running through a dvi converter which might be the cause. But like I said, the monitor seems to be able to run colour through the cable, so it seems more of a system issue. I've switched the resolution around and still no luck,
 
When you say a DVI splitter do you mean an adaper like this?:



When you say you switch the TV's are you physically swapping the cables over or changing which one is the primary display in Windows?

Is it the one with the adapter which is black and white?
 
Thanks for the advice so far guys.

Yeah the adapter is that one. As the tvs have only vga or hdmi input I'm fairly restricted.

I switched the cables yeah. One thing thats strange is from one dvi port I get no picture at all and the other is black and white. Is this relevant?

I've tried switching which was primary as well and it didnt affect it.
 
Firstly try connecting the DVI to HDMI adapter to the other DVI connector on the HD 6870.

If that doesn't work read on.

Presumably you got a DVI to VGA adapter with the graphics card.



Can you try using that instead of the DVI to HDMI adapter?

Note that the DVI to VGA adapter will only work in one of the DVI connectors on the HD 6870 as the other only has a digital output.
 
Well I plugged it into both ports, and only one actually worked (witht he dvi to hdmi).

That's something that seems odd for a start. I'll check the box now, but I don't remember seeing any adapters in there. But I really would prefer to run the other monitor in some form of digital really.
 
Retodd33 said:
Well I plugged it into both ports, and only one actually worked (witht he dvi to hdmi).

That's something that seems odd for a start. I'll check the box now, but I don't remember seeing any adapters in there. But I really would prefer to run the other monitor in some form of digital really.
Click to expand...

I'm just wanting you to test if you get a colour picture using VGA.

If you do that would suggest the HDMI adapter isn't playing nicely with the HD 6870.

If you don't then the problem is elsewhere.
 
Yeah it does seem strange how colour is running through it, just not once i'm logged in.

Do i have many other options? I mean why does my other dvi port not even give off any signal at all?
 
In the Catalyst Control Centre try switching which screen is the main display.

See if this changes anything or if it swaps which display is black and white.
 
Right....This changes everything....

I thought I'd try some more port switching. Pulled all the monitors out, plugged the one that has been running colour into the Dvi with the adapter. Suddenly bingo, I've got colour.

So I try the second monitor, plug that in, still colour. Awesome.

I plug the first monitor back in HDMI, and....nothing. It detects somethings there. But won't display a picture. I'm not going to restart. See what happens. But make sense of that what you will!!
 
Right.....So it starts up, image on screen 1 (1 was the original good one), and nothing on screen 2.

Gets all the way to log on screen, then both screens are blank.

I then unplug screen 1, and the picture then comes up on screen 2.

This is getting odd.... I really have no idea whats going on with my haunted ports.
 
Retodd33 said:
Right....This changes everything....

I thought I'd try some more port switching. Pulled all the monitors out, plugged the one that has been running colour into the Dvi with the adapter. Suddenly bingo, I've got colour.

So I try the second monitor, plug that in, still colour. Awesome.

I plug the first monitor back in HDMI, and....nothing. It detects somethings there. But won't display a picture. I'm not going to restart. See what happens. But make sense of that what you will!!
Click to expand...

I'm glad it seems sorted but I thought you said you already did that in post #5?

I must have misunderstood.
 
Thats the odd part, I did try it, but I still had the other monitor plugged in the original port.

It seems that when I plug them in indiviually, Everythings fine, but once theres multiple outputs, it cant handle it.

Ignore the monitors, they are fine. These are the different variations and results.

On its own...
HDMI - fine
dvi 1 - fine
dvi 2 - fine

Combined....
HDMI/dvi 1 - colour/black and white
HDMI/dvi 2 - colour/no output

However say I pull out the HMDI from the HDMI/dvi 2 situation, suddenly I'll have colour output from the DVI.

This is all really odd, but it just seems they don't want to work with each other. Is this the norm? I'm fairly confused.
 
Have you put everything back to how it was when you did this?:

I thought I'd try some more port switching. Pulled all the monitors out, plugged the one that has been running colour into the Dvi with the adapter. Suddenly bingo, I've got colour.

So I try the second monitor, plug that in, still colour. Awesome.
Click to expand...
 
Ah thats where the confusion lies....

That was me testing each monitor indiviually, thats my fault, I didnt make it clear.

It was there that I discovered that each monitor will work on its own in each port. But the problem lies as soon as I try to use more than one port at a time. That's when I get no output or black and white.

Sorry if I was a little confusing. But I still have the same problem. Altho the one thing I can't try is running both from the dvi ports, but I could if I had another DVI-HDMI converter. But that seems so unneccesary. It should just work as it is.
 
Have you tried using a different HDMI port on the TV that's showing black and white?

And just confirm you've tried swapping the HDMI cables over on the HD 6870 so that each TV is using the other connector.
 
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