Three monitors problem (main display is left monitor)

Cromulent · 2 May 2017 at 15:27

I have just bought a new monitor bringing my total number of monitors up to three. All three of them are connected via DisplayPort to an Nvidia 980Ti with the latest drivers on an up to date Windows 10 Home install.

I've looked in the display properties panel and the middle monitor is certainly set as the primary display with the two side monitors as secondary but when I press the Windows key and P and select PC screen only the middle monitor and the right monitor turn off and only the left monitor is displayed.

Is there anyway to fix this at all? I mean I guess I could always run three monitors but it would be nice if I could turn off the two side monitors if they were not needed to save electricity.

I've looked in both Windows display properties and the Nvidia control panel and I'm sure the middle monitor is set as primary but for some reason it is numbered as monitor 2 and the left one is numbered as 1.

I must be missing something so any help is appreciated

.

Fanatic · 2 May 2017 at 15:34

Could try switching the DisplayPort cables?

But then your monitors might be in the wrong order...

Cromulent · 2 May 2017 at 15:40

Fanatic said:
Could try switching the DisplayPort cables?

But then your monitors might be in the wrong order...

Hmm I was hoping that I wouldn't need to resort to changing cables around. Surely Windows 10 can do this without having to move DisplayPort cables from port to port? Otherwise what is the point of setting a display as the primary display in the windows properties? I'll try and fiddle around with them in a bit and see what happens.

eddiew · 2 May 2017 at 15:43

It seems to be a thing that one of the display ports is the default at a hardware level. Which screen does your bios appear on?

(FWIW, mine insists that my DVI panel has higher priority than my central DP screen, so my startups are always on a tiny monitor rotated 90 degrees...)

Cromulent · 2 May 2017 at 15:49

Fanatic said:
Could try switching the DisplayPort cables?

But then your monitors might be in the wrong order...

eddiew said:
It seems to be a thing that one of the display ports is the default at a hardware level. Which screen does your bios appear on?

(FWIW, mine insists that my DVI panel has higher priority than my central DP screen, so my startups are always on a tiny monitor rotated 90 degrees...)

Thank you both for the replies. I switched around the DisplayPort cables and now it is working fine. Seems really odd though that this is still a problem in 2017. I would have thought this would be easily solvable in software rather than relying on the graphics card hardware to say what is the primary display.

eddiew · 2 May 2017 at 16:06

Cromulent said:
Thank you both for the replies. I switched around the DisplayPort cables and now it is working fine. Seems really odd though that this is still a problem in 2017. I would have thought this would be easily solvable in software rather than relying on the graphics card hardware to say what is the primary display.

Basically the hardware has to choose one or the other to put the bios on, when given multiple options, but it does seem like Windows could do with paying attention to user requests. Would be nice to see the graphics card having a programmable chip on it too so that it could remember and use your preference during the boot sequence...