Changing the default boot display(s) on AMD 6950

[colin_e]

Hi Guys, this one has me scratching my head at the moment.

I have a 2GB HD 6950 (running 6970 firmware) driving a 24" Dell 1920x1200 main monitor.

Recently I put a new monitor on the second PC, and took the two old 17" 1280x1024 monitors and put them either side of the Dell monitor on my main PC, rotated 90deg. The width and 1280 resolution of the 17" monitors almost exactly matches the height and 1200 resolution of the Dell so this creates quite a nice Portrait/Landscape/Portrait (PLP) setup.

The Dell is connected to a DVI port on the 6950 (through a KVM switch), and the 17" monitors are on the Displayport outputs via active DP/DVI adapters.

Note- this is not running Eyefinity, Eyefinity doesn't support Lanscape/Portrait combinations sadly, and makes a real hash of it if you try.

Anyway- in Windows this setup works well.

The only problem is while the PC is booting, it is using the Displayport outputs as the default boot display, so all my boot messages come out on the two side displays, turned through 90 degrees! Most of the time this just looks weird, but as you can imagine it makes any BIOS changes a neck twisting exercise.

I can't find any way to tell the motherboard (Asus M4A88T-M/USB3 uATX) to use the DVI output as the boot display instead of the Displayport.

Is this actually possible, or do the AMD cards always use the Displayport outputs as the boot display of they are connected?

Any ideas much appreciated. I'm getting neck-ache from reading the screens sideways while trying different BIOS settings...

Regards: colin_e

 

[wazza300]

howmany dvi ports on that gpu? couldnt you connect your 24" to one of your display ports and use dvi for one of the 17"?

you can only choose which initial first display (pcie-#1/pcie-#2) ect in the bios,its rather limited

 

[colin_e]

The card has two mini-Displayport outputs, two DVI, and an HDMI. Max 4 monitors supported simultaneously.

I kept the main monitor on one of the DVI connections because that's where it was before, and because its' connected through a KVM. Modern KVMs are "intelligent", they try to monitor and repeat both the EDID info from the monitor and the keyboard and mouse ID data. I just got bitten by this when I upgraded to a programmable keyboard and mouse, and discovered the KVM couldn't handle them...

a) I wanted to avoid the complexity of having a Displayport to DVI adapter feeding a KVM feeding the monitor.

b) The active DP to DVI adapters I have are single link and only go up to 1920x1200 (dual link adapters still cost an arm and a leg). If I ever want to upgrade my main monitor to something larger, it's likely it will have to connect via dual-link DVI (nobody seems to be making Displayport KVMs).

If there's no other solution I will try the DP-DVI-KVM route for the main monitor, but i'm not convinced it will work. It does seem like a rather basic limitation if there's no way to control this.

Regards: colin_e

howmany dvi ports on that gpu? couldnt you connect your 24" to one of your display ports and use dvi for one of the 17"?

you can only choose which initial first display (pcie-#1/pcie-#2) ect in the bios,its rather limited

 

[wazza300]

you could go the hdmi to dvi adaptor route but no idea which would be displayed first at start up,displayport or hdmi