3 screens Connecting to 7970...Eyefinity

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I have been trying to attach 3 screens to MSI 7970.
Heres my set up
1 x 27" center screen HDMI to HDMI port
1 x 19" VGA to DVI A converter into DVI A port
These work fine.

I have just discovered an adapter with the GPU that i think may work for the 3rd screen. DVI-D female to Mini Display Port marked ACTIVE.
It does NOT have a USB power cable.
The 3rd screen is only VGA.

If i get a cheap male DVI-D to VGA female converter will this ACTIVE adapter drive my 3rd screen.

Please advise

R
 
The adapter came with the card, i cant find a pic.
From other info i understand as long as it is Active it should work??????
 
But i already have a VGA working, connected via a VGA cable to VGA to DVI connector into the DVI port on the GPU?
 
WOW..so many acronyms....this is getting even more confusing..
The GPU has
1 x HDMI
1 x DVI-A
2 x Mini Display Ports.
It came with
1 x DVI-A to VGA connector
1 x DVI-D to Mini Display Port Adapter marked ACTIVE
1 x Display Port to Mini Display Port Adapter.

I really dont want to spend another £80 on this. Is there another way to run 3 screens, perhaps with out Eyefinity??
 
Use the current 19" screen and change to the DVI-D to Mini Display Port Adapter marked ACTIVE, and then the VGA to DVI-A on the 3rd screen you wanted?

2 VGA screens & 1 HDMI screen... difficult.

HDMI > HDMI
DVI-A > VGA
DVI-D > DVI of some sort.

You can buy 'VGA DVI' cables, they will convert the signal and are in-expensive (£20ish) & Use the ACTIVE cable on the current 19".
 
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Correction: DVI-I, which does both VGA (DVI-A) and DVI-D signals.

I have a DP -> VGA adapter that doesn't require external power and I can do triple screens fine (worked on my 5770, 6850 and current 7950). If you look around on the rainforest, you can get Startech mini DP to VGA (which is what I have) for around £20. Ones usually powered by USB is to convert the signal to a Dual-link DVI, which is not needed for resolutions under 1080p.
 
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I just discovered the screen in question has a DVI-D female, the same as the Mini Display Port adapter.
Will this mean i only need a cable to connect???????
 
This is getting very confusing dude. Why not keep all the discussions about connecting your screens in one thread? You seem to have three or four threads you've started about the same thing, and your tendency to include only some information doesn't make it any easier for people to work out what you need and help you.

Rather than try to answer your question directly and potentially send you down the wrong route, I'd prefer to start from the beginning with a full explanation, so we can determine exactly what you need and don't end up buying stuff you can't use.

DVI, HDMI and VGA all require a clock signal to be sent through the cable along with the picture. Displayport does not require a clock signal. Your 7970 has two clock generators built in, so you can use 2 DVI/HDMI/VGA connections.

Passive Displayport adapters require the card to still produce a clock signal, Active Displayport adapters produce their own clock signal so the card doesn't have to. This means for connecting three or four screens, you can use the DVI/HDMI outputs for screens 1 & 2 (with adapters if required) but for screens 3 & 4 you need to use Displayport to Displayport, or Displayport to Active adapters.

You mention your screens have HDMI, VGA, and VGA ports respectively. You can use HDMI to HDMI for screen 1 (as you've done), DVI to VGA for screen 2 (either via an adapter, or a cable with DVI on one end and VGA on the other). For screen 3, you need to use an Active MiniDisplayport to VGA adapter such as Startech's MDP2VGA (as I recommended in your last thread, google that model number to find it as OcUK don't stock them).

If your third screen also has a DVI port, as your last post seems to indicate, you can then get an Active Displayport to DVI adapter instead, and use this with a DVI-DVI cable. You indicate you may have one of these in the box, some 7970's came with them, some didn't. Give it a try. Single link adapters work up to 1920x1200 and don't need USB power, double link adapters work above 1920x1200, do need USB power, and tend to be 2-3 times the price.

Eyefinity is AMD's name for merging multiple screens so Windows only "sees" one big screen attached. This is how you're able to play games across different screens (my PC sees a single 5760x1080 screen when I play a game). With Eyefinity disabled, the PC sees separate screens attached. Whether Eyefinity is enabled or not makes no difference to how you need to connect the screens up - Eyefinity is purely the software side of how the PC sees your screen setup.

Hope that helps, but any further questions please keep it in this thread as that way you're more likely to get quicker and more relevant help. :)
 
I just discovered the screen in question has a DVI-D female, the same as the Mini Display Port adapter.
Will this mean i only need a cable to connect???????

If so then all you will need is a DVI cable. How can you not notice that DVI port on the monitor before :p?
 
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