Mac Pro 2x 5770 3 monitor display/Eyefinity help

Question

Mac Pro 2x 5770 3 monitor display/Eyefinity help

I have 2 5770's 1 from apple and one from asus (i'm running Lion so it doesn't need to be flashed. I tried running three screens but no matter what order I plug the screens in it doesn't work. All screens use DVI. 1 of them is connected to a Active singelink mini display port to DVI adapter, the other is using a passive single link DVI to MDP, and the third is just using regular DVI.

Do i need a dual link adapter or another active single link? or a active dual link?

All of the screens are connected to the apple 5770

My specs are:

Model Name: Mac Pro

Model Identifier: MacPro3,1

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz

Number of Processors: 2

Total Number of Cores: 8

L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB

Memory: 6 GB

Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

The third display is not listed nor is the asus 5770 for some reason.

ATI Radeon HD 5770:

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 5770

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x68b8

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-C0160C-155

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.436

Displays:

W2340:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: 002NDNUCN687

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Adapter Type: DVI Or HDMI

Adapter Firmware Version: 8.18

Cinema HD:

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: 2A8211Y6XMN

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 27, 2012 2:39 PM

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Answer 1

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Jan 27, 2012 5:44 PM in response to Michaellskyes

I have 2 5770's 1 from apple and one from asus (i'm running Lion so it doesn't need to be flashed.

On what basis can you make that statement about the asus? You must have the firmware apple provides for the 5x70 cards (at least for OSX, not sure about using Windows). So I am going to assume that card isn't working and you want to connect three displays to the apple 5770.

When connecting three displays to a 5x70 card you need two active adapters. As long as the desired resolution is less than 1920 x 1200 you only need single link DVI for a DVI connection. Greater requires dual link.

Here's some pertinent apple articles related to this subject:

Mac Pro (Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Early 2009): Issues with three displays and multiple DVI, HDMI connections

Mac Pro (Early 2009), Mac Pro (Mid 2010): Supported display configurations

FWIW, if you could get the second 5770 working there shouldn't be any problems. Just get one single link passive mini-diplayport to DVI adapter and connect two if the DVI monitors to one card and one to the DVI port of the other assuming all your montors are under that 1920 x 1200 resolution (what you listed above are).

With respect to the asus if you decide you want to flash it, macrumors has a interesting thread on flashing video cards:

The Golden Guide to Flashing Graphic Cards

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Answer 2

Jan 27, 2012 6:34 PM in response to X423424X

Lion free'd up a few options for graphics cards. It natively supports the asus 5770 so there's no need to flash it. There's been a lot a speculation about it but I can confirm it works, It also saved me $160 from buying the apple card. The card works fine in osx just with a few kinks such as being unable to see the boot screen at launch.

I mainly wanted to have the 3 screens for eyefinity in windows 7.

I guess i need to buy another active adapter

I just checked the display configuration and it says that i need to dual link adapters for three screens

"If you are connecting three displays, any DVI displays must be connected to either the Dual-Link DVI port or must use an Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link Adapter."

I feel like i might need to get the dual link adapters as eyefinity creates a 5760x3240 throughout the three displays.

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Answer 3

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Jan 27, 2012 6:52 PM in response to Michaellskyes

The adapters resolution limits only have to satify the max desired resolution of the display they are connected to not the total size of the extended desktop across multiple displays. So for a display less than 1920 x 1200 you only need an single link DVI adapter. As I said above, if both cards are working then you shouldn't need active adapters so long as you have no more than two monitors on any one card. The quote you mentioned above was with respect to handling three displays on one card (or a monitor requiring greater than 1920 x 1200) and I think at the time it was written there weren't many active adapters on the market and the only active DVI adapter apple sells is that dual link version.

What I suggest is you look at the following:

AMD Eyefinity Validated Dongles

Then google search for the desired adapter and check to see if www.monoprice.com has the desired adapter becuuse they generally have good prices on "stuff". For example if you do decide on the dual link active DVI adapter look at monoprice's. Compare that to Apple's.

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