Question for Admin or MTU SUPPORT

[admin]

Wallymeister, I would make two suggestions.

1. I have worked hard to get the "Dual Display" topic in the manual as down to earth as I can. You or your friend should read it as a first starting point. As Marklwood mentioned, you MUST have the second display turned on and the cable plugged into the computer #2 display video port before powering up the computer/Windows.

2. MTU has phone support. We prefer our "Web Email Form" that creates a Support Ticket we can track and answer when we have time (telephone interrupts), but... we do answer our phone. We may have been able to help your friend try some things. However, if the graphics card failed, then it needed to be replaced by someone who could do this locally.

I don't think they should have gutted the system. I think that was a "brute force" that should have been the last resort. Replacing a video card and driver is not that bad for experts to do.

I think the support you have received by your peers is superb. I'm sorry Capnvic ruffled your feathers. Obviously he (and others in MTU.Community) have had some bad experiences with the Geek Squad, but they are there, and usually are trained. Capnvic usually has excellent suggestions, so I'd ask you to forgive his comments, as he may have had a bad day as I do some times.

[Wallymeister]

Admin:

Thanks for your comments. I am not a total novice when it comes to getting dual diplay to work. The problem with my friends computer when it went to the Geek Squad was it had no display at all. (would not boot on either screen)
My diagnosis at that point was video card fried. I suggested he take it to the Geeks because I wasn't available for at least a few days and he wanted it fixed now and I never thought it would be a problem as I have never had a problem changing a video card ever. (done it 3 or 4 times, either as upgrade or because old one fried) When the computer came back from the Geeks it would boot but nothing would show on second monitor. Display Properties didn't show any tabs, such as Themes, Desktop, Screensaver, Appearance, or Settings. At this point, the obvious thing is to take it back to the Geeks, as it was something they didn't do right. (or so I believed whole heartedly)
It is my assumption that the motherboards display was overriding the installed card for some reason. The bad part is that the Geeks thought that wiping the hard drive clean would fix the problem and maybe it did, I haven't heard the latest yet. This was not a real problem for my friend for he doesn't have a lot of software on this computer except Hoster, Microstudio. I made sure that his MTU download files were saved to his secondary drive before they wiped C" drive clean. He can at least re-install everything he had.

BTW, all is forgiven.

Again, Thanks for your comments.

Wallymeister

[marklwood]

Originally Posted by Wallymeister

Admin:
Display Properties didn't show any tabs, such as Themes, Desktop, Screensaver, Appearance, or Settings.

It is my assumption that the motherboards display was overriding the installed card for some reason.

Wallymeister

That would be my assumption too. Here are the most common keys to hit during boot to get in to the bios that I can remember.

The Delete key is the most common.
Press Delete during boot = AMI, Award BIOS
Press Esc during boot = Toshiba
Press F1 during boot = Toshiba; Phoenix;
Press F10 when cursor jumps to top right-hand corner of screen = Compaq
Press F10 when logo screen is displayed = Compaq
Press F2 during boot = NEC
Press Tab during boot = Emachine
Press Reset button twice = some Dells
Ctrl Alt + = Misc computers
Alt Enter = Dell
Ctrl Alt Esc = AST Advantage, Award, Tandon
Ctrl Alt Ins = Zenith, Phoenix
Ctrl Alt S = Phoenix

Check to see if the computer even sees the additional video card. If not, it may be a bad/incompatible card. If you can see it, select it. If you are still having trouble, re-install the driver/software for the card and try again. No matter what extra cards you have installed, the bios can maker them invisible in windows. The only way to know for sure is to check the bios.

Also it would help to know more about this particular computer. Download and run http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html this will give you a comprehensive list of the hardware and software installed on the computer. Even if you don't continue in this thread, this is a very handy program to have.

[Wallymeister]

marklwood
Thanks for the info. Yes the computer does recognize the newly installed card. I went to device driver once and it had an exclamation by it, then when I went back a second time it didn't but nothing worked any differently. Anyway I didn't have a lot of time to mess with it before we just took it back to the Geeks.

The Geeks are still scrathing their asses (I mean heads, might be the same thing).

Wallymeister

[marklwood]

Originally Posted by Wallymeister

marklwood
Thanks for the info. Yes the computer does recognize the newly installed card. I went to device driver once and it had an exclamation by it, then when I went back a second time it didn't but nothing worked any differently. Anyway I didn't have a lot of time to mess with it before we just took it back to the Geeks.

The Geeks are still scrathing their asses (I mean heads, might be the same thing).

Wallymeister

The exclamation point would suggest that the drivers/software were not installed properly. The fact that it is gone now would suggest that windows doesn't see it at all. That would be more like bios hiding it or a bad card.

[Wallymeister]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking except that Geeks are baffled by what's going on. I know that sometimes you think that the simplest thing can't be, but it just might be.



Wallymeister

ADMIN EDITED...