14 monitor setup

wrbtrader · Dec 20, 2013

Quote from Dart:

...I do not agree that it will be a problem.

Seriously, do not underestimate your environment for efficient trading as did so many others before you that have tried similar as you are about to do with so many monitors.

(Note: I'm assuming you're a retail trader at home and trading alone with that much information.)

Go slow in the beginning and good luck.

Dart · Dec 20, 2013

Quote from wrbtrader:

Go slow in the beginning and good luck.

Will do.

And yes, I've always traded from home. Maybe some time in the future I will get a commercial office, as they aren't terribly expensive to rent. I just like being at home.

I agree, even with three monitors as I did with silver, it was a lot of decompression after a long trading day. It's definitely hard to describe to a non-trader what that feels like, that much I can say. I traded silver in a large room that was also my bedroom, that I wont do again... very hard to get away from work when you sleep where you work. lol.

Bolimomo · Dec 20, 2013

Quote from Dart:

I'm going to power the two main big monitors hopefully from the two hdmi ports on my video card, and run the other 10 from the hubs and two dvi connectors on the cards. Then for the 13th and 14th monitor I'm running two usb displaylink adapters.

You may have a few challenges with your design concept. I have not tried anything remotely like what you are thinking, but I think you may need to look at a few things:

- Are you running 2 or more big video cards, each capable of supporting 4+ or 6+ monitors? Those cards tend to be huge. Your power consumption and heat dissipation need to be looked at.

- Are you sure you can use both HDMI port and Displaylink port to drive monitors at the same time? For some, it may be an "either/or" option.

- There are plenty cards supporting 1920x1080 these days. But 2560x1200, not very many. You are looking at a card that not only support 4+ ports, but also support this high-res as well. May not be easy.

- The display component of your system will be costly. Can cost more than the PC itself.

- The USB displaylink adapters may not work. Because from what I have experienced, the SIIG-to-VGA Pro adapter uses Displaylink software, which works with Windows 7 monitor management software (instead of being a separate app). Win 7 has a limitation of managing a maximum of 10 monitors. It doesn't know what to do with anything above that.

Dart · Dec 20, 2013

Quote from Bolimomo:

You may have a few challenges with your design concept. I have not tried anything remotely like what you are thinking, but I think you may need to look at a few things:

- Are you running 2 or more big video cards, each capable of supporting 4+ or 6+ monitors? Those cards tend to be huge. Your power consumption and heat dissipation need to be looked at.

- Are you sure you can use both HDMI port and Displaylink port to drive monitors at the same time? For some, it may be an "either/or" option.

- There are plenty cards supporting 1920x1080 these days. But 2560x1200, not very many. You are looking at a card that not only support 4+ ports, but also support this high-res as well. May not be easy.

- The display component of your system will be costly. Can cost more than the PC itself.

- The USB displaylink adapters may not work. Because from what I have experienced, the SIIG-to-VGA Pro adapter uses Displaylink software, which works with Windows 7 monitor management software (instead of being a separate app). Win 7 has a limitation of managing a maximum of 10 monitors. It doesn't know what to do with anything above that.

Heat is definitely a concern, but I think with charts it shouldn't get hot as it would gaming for example, but we'll see.

I hope it lets me run both displaylink and hdmi, I checked around before ordering the MST hubs and it appears it will work, but when the hubs come I will find out. I know they can drive 5 as I have seen this configuration.

The displaylink port can run 4 x 1920x1080, limit on the interface technology, so I'll run the other 2560x1600 display off of HDMI or DVI and hopefully it will work.

The display component has so far cost me the card (around $200) and the hub ($100). So as of now it seems rather cost effective as yet, assuming it will work. Since I already had one of the cards I only had to spend for the two hubs and the one card plus the two usb adapters at $62 each.

Windows 7 can run (in theory anyway) up to 128 displays, according to my research. The limitation of 10 displays was on windows XP. So hopefully that wont be a problem with Windows Vista and above.

As for power consumption, I forgot to mention I have a 750w Corsair power supply. It's supposed to handle crossfire, so from a power perspective hopefully this is enough to power two cards.

Catoosa · Dec 20, 2013

I have been running 12 monitors on one PC for about the last 13 years (first with win 98 and currently win 2000). I have upgraded the PC several times during the 13 years and it still does what I need. I can run 2 charting program, connect to 3 or 4 broker trading platforms, and run an accounting program all at the same time. The software and hardware handles the load fine. The one thing I had to do was pull 3 additional electrical circuits from my breaker box and install an air conditioning unit for the room. I use 3 quad Matrox cards with the Matrox multi-monitor software to get around the windows 10 monitor limit. I use 3 UPS power backups and 2 additional PCs (one for internet browsing and one for my anti Bill Gates Microsoft linux use) attached to a KVM to allow all 3 PC to be controlled with one keyboard and mouse.

If I were building a replacement multi-monitor PC today, it would likely be with win 7 or linux using 8 monitors of about 24" to 27".

Dart · Dec 20, 2013

Quote from Catoosa:

I have been running 12 monitors on one PC for about the last 13 years (first with win 98 and currently win 2000). I have upgraded the PC several times during the 13 years and it still does what I need. I can run 2 charting program, connect to 3 or 4 broker trading platforms, and run an accounting program all at the same time. The software and hardware handles the load fine. The one thing I had to do was pull 3 additional electrical circuits from my breaker box and install an air conditioning unit for the room. I use 3 quad Matrox cards with the Matrox multi-monitor software to get around the windows 10 monitor limit. I use 3 UPS power backups and 2 additional PCs (one for internet browsing and one for my anti Bill Gates Microsoft linux use) attached to a KVM to allow all 3 PC to be controlled with one keyboard and mouse.

If I were building a replacement multi-monitor PC today, it would likely be with win 7 or linux using 8 monitors of about 24" to 27".

Pretty neat you got around the 10 monitor limitation, I'll make note of that in case I try a setup with an older OS. Cool.

I went with smaller screens partly because you can tilt them in better than bigger screens let you. We'll see how this works. I also got a steal deal on them too, at $130 or less a monitor, running IPS technology (used by graphics professionals mostly) that has a nice wide viewing angle of 178 degrees.

I have a UPC backup for my main monitor and pc, I don't expect to use it but if there were a power outtage at least I'd get a few minutes off of it, it's a 1500 watt one or whatever with a recent battery.

As for heat, I'm hoping I wont have a problem with it as these are all LED displays running at about half the watts of the older style screens (30 watts a display and 60 watts for my big displays). I have a portable air conditioner I can put in the window if needed, come summer, to cool the room. My setup is in the basement though, so all the cool air should pool down here and keep it nice and cool.

I'm looking at getting a KVM too, for running my main monitor and keyboard/mouse on a second pc, as a backup in case the primary pc fails. Wish KVM's switched multiple monitors, as my second pc can run 6 displays on it.

I also have a laptop I'm gonna leave on in the background just in case too.

Dart · Dec 21, 2013

Well, I just found out I can power two monitors with each usb 3.0 displaylink adapter, so I decided to add another monitor to the setup, a vertically mounted 30 inch ips display I had that I wasn't using (2560x1600), as a vertically mounted display that size should work nice for looking at time/sales and such. Just had to buy a stand for it to mount vertically, another Cheif stand.

Bolimomo · Dec 21, 2013

Quote from Dart:

Well, I just found out I can power two monitors with each usb 3.0 displaylink adapter,

What make/model do you use?

Also, upthread, did we have a mix of terminologies?

DisplayPort is the interface standard between the computer video card and the monitor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

And DisplayLink:

DisplayLink is a semiconductor and software technology company. DisplayLink USB graphics technology is designed to connect computers and displays using USB Ethernet and WiFi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayLink

At one point, we used the term "displaylink port". I got a bit confused (now) as to whether the was referring to one of the DisplayPorts (or miniDP) on the ATI card, or the DisplayLink USB-to-DVI adapter that you will be using.

I think a simple schematic diagram will help illustrating your set up.

Dart · Dec 22, 2013

Quote from Bolimomo:

What make/model do you use?

Also, upthread, did we have a mix of terminologies?

DisplayPort is the interface standard between the computer video card and the monitor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

And DisplayLink:

DisplayLink is a semiconductor and software technology company. DisplayLink USB graphics technology is designed to connect computers and displays using USB Ethernet and WiFi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayLink

At one point, we used the term "displaylink port". I got a bit confused (now) as to whether the was referring to one of the DisplayPorts (or miniDP) on the ATI card, or the DisplayLink USB-to-DVI adapter that you will be using.

I think a simple schematic diagram will help illustrating your set up.

Here is the usb 3.0 displaylink adapter I use:

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-DisplayP...8&qid=1387689146&sr=8-1&keywords=evga+uv+plus

DisplayLink is it's chipset, which is the same chipset as just about all usb display adapters one can buy. I neglected to specify brand as they all seem about the same, minus the fact that different models have different hardware chipset revisions (some newer than others).

DisplayLink specifies it's maximum per pc is 6 monitors, so three usb 3.0 adapters will run the six maximum allowed.

I wont be running the 2560x1600 off of it, but rather I will power one of my 1920x1080 displays with it, freeing up a port on my pci express card to run one more of my 30 inch displays (the displaylink usb cards are maximum 2048x1152 as of this time to my knowledge).

The pci express cards can run 4 total monitors at the higher resolution, plus 8 at the lower resolution combined between my two cards pci express cards.

DisplayPort is the technology used with an MST hub, such as this one:

http://www.evga.com/articles/00815/

That hub was released 12/17/2013 so it is brand new. I was able to order two before they ran out of stock.

Each MST hub can run 3 monitors, plus the additional mini displayport (card has 2) can run another monitor. So total of 4 displayport monitors per card, and one hdmi and one dvi. That makes six monitors total per GPU (graphics processing unit). The maximum supported by the current ATI series graphics cards. I would like to note, that for under $200 new, you can buy a card that will run six monitors, such as this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125451

I currently am running two such cards. Keys to know about them is, get a model that has two fans, such as Twin Frozr from MSI, DirectCUII from Asus, or Windforce 2X from Gigabyte, and bigger the better on the fan radius, as then they will only spin slowly. They are almost silent, comparable to passive cooling. They wont heat up when under minimal load (such as watching movies, youtube, browsing, etc). I haven't tried them with charts, but I assume they will never get very hot ever, even though they were designed for gaming purposes primarily. If you game, they sound like a literal tornado in your pc as they spin up, but I'm not using them for this. They'll never spin up I don't think on charts. Or that is my hope.

One thing to know about such a setup, is that these power hungry graphics cards do draw a LOT of power and require CLEAN power, so a crappy power supply will be an endless nightmare. My power supply was originally $250 new before rebates. The brand power supply I recommend is Seasonic. If you want to read in-depth reviews on them, go to www.silentpcreview.com they run very hard core tests on power supplies there, for silent cooling high-temp purposes. I got a Corsair as it said to be made by Seasonic, so it's basically the closest I could get buying locally. The fan on my power supply almost doesn't spin, so it's pretty much silent. I built my whole pc locally, without buying almost anything online except the hubs and monitors.

Also worth noting, I saved a boatload on cables buying them online. a $30 cable is $10 online, shipped. I saved several hundred dollars waiting for cables to be shipped to me.

I highly recommend EVGA brand products, they seem to run more solid than most, and are built very well. The alternative DisplayPort MST hubs are still available (not out of stock) available from both Accell and Club3D. For more information on this topic, there is a thread talking about them. Google those two names together, it should be the top result. Accell hubs would be my second recommendation, as accell seems to be a decent brand, they are available directly from the accell web site:

http://www.accellcables.com/K088B-003B.html

These displayport MST hubs only became available in like October of this year in the US, they weren't importing them for several years though they were being made for overseas, or so I understand.

I hope this helps clarify some of the details of my original post.

EDIT: I see where I said "DisplayLink Port", I meant "DisplayPort port", oops.

Dart · Dec 22, 2013

Also, as a side note, my computer system should be able to reliably power 18 monitors once setup. (I'm buying one more DisplayLink adapter to max at 6 possible DisplayLink displays). I will start with 15 monitors, but I may add another stack of three later for a total of 18 monitors. Or a stack of two and one more high resolution display (maybe one of the new 30 inch widescreens, as they seem cheap, and mount it vertically also). That would be 4 high resolution displays, the maximum I can run.