A Displayport Success Story

kadepsyson

I'm mainly writing this in case it helps someone who comes across a similar issue.

 

I used to have two 5870 graphics cards in crossfire in my computer.  They were hooked up to three displays using the two DVI ports and one Displayport cable.  Well those cards have only 1 Gigabyte of memory, and considering I was running into roadblocks with my Eyefinity setup, I upgraded to a pair of 7970s with 3 Gigabytes of memory each.

 

The problem began with the difference in connectivity options on the graphics cards.  The 7970 I bought features 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, and 2 mini-displayport ports on it.  I couldn't use my full sized Displayport cables that came with my monitors anymore, and ended up buying two Mini-Displayport to full sized Displayport cables.  The mini sides went into the graphics card, and the full sized part into two of my three monitors, with the third powered by DVI.  This was a much more cost effective solution than shelling out for an active adapter to go from mini displayport to DVI.

 

Well I nearly had a heart attack when I had my computer finally put back together, every peripheral plugged in, and pressed power.  The LEDs inside lit up, but nothing else happened.  No POST, no codes changing on the motherboards display, just the fans moving.  Well after a long bit of troubleshooting, it turns out my computer boots just fine when the mini-displayport to full displayport cables are not plugged in to the graphics card when I hit power, and as soon as it starts to boot I can plug them in and everything is fine and dandy.

 

What that amounted to was me having to crawl under my desk every time I wanted to boot my computer to unhook the cables, and then plug em back in once the boot starts.

 

Today I recieved two cables I bought from monoprice.  Each were under 5 dollars, and still were mini-displayport to full displayport cables, still the same length of six feet.  I plugged in both new cables, replacing the previous ones, and pressed power, computer booted just fine with all three monitors plugged into it.

 

 

Moral of the story is: Displayport seems to have issues, even more than I've written about above, and it could just be a bad cable that's ruining your day.

Cleffy

DisplayPort is an amazing technology when you analyze what that cable is capable of compared to other display cables, but yea, if you do decide to go display port, buy 3 cables from different manfacturers.  They have a high chance of not working right, and its mainly the cable.  Same applies to HDMI.  Also more expensive is not better.  For instance Monster cables are expensive, but they also break easier since they use a softer medal.