Heterogenius USB-to-VGA adapters on same system

B

Bolimomo

I got a newly self-built I5 box.

The EVGA 8400 GS inserted into the one and only PCIe X16 slot wouldn't work for some reasons. MSI said the power supply was too low (250W). And I had a 20-pin power out from the old power supply instead of the 24-pin ATX required.

I have a few extra See2Extreme and SIIG USB-to-DVI/VGA adapters laying around. So I thought... let me just plug in all the extra monitors using those adapters. I only want to drive 4 monitors from this box.

So... one from the motherboard. Intel HD graphics. Worked fine.

Installed the See2Extreme software driver. Proceeded with See2Extreme #1 on USB #1. No problem. 2 monitors.

Proceeded with See2Extreme #2 on USB #2. No problem. 3 monitors.

Proceeded with See2Extreme #3 on USB #3. Uh oh... As soon as I plugged in a third adapter, black screen on all 4 monitors, not just monitor #4. Unplugged and rebooted, monitor 1-3 okay. Tried again, same issue. Very persistent. No hope. Reason unknown. Windows only reported "driver not successfully installed".

So the genius in me wanted to try use one of the SIIG USB-to-VGA Pro as adapter #3 and see if I can get the monitor #4 to light up. So... installed SIIG software driver (DisplayLink) - with the See2Extreme driver software still installed. Rebooted and plugged in SIIG USB-to-VGA Pro adapter. Voila!....

Instant Blue Screen.

Windows 7 restarted. After login, instant blue screen.

Booted up in safe mode. Safe mode is stable. But it won't let me uninstall the DisplayLink software. Errored.

If I start up Windows 7 normally, the endless blue screen reboot cycle repeats.

Didn't think I would get myself into this mess. Looks like re-install Windows 7 may be the only possible solution.
 
I might also add that a FirePro 2460 should work fine on a 250W power supply. Four monitors reliably, unlike usb the adapters.

Let me know if the uninstaller above works. I couldn't get mine to uninstall either, no matter what. It would just sit there uninstalling for several minutes until I gave up waiting. It was basically freezing on uninstall. I double clicked the cleaner dos file, but when I hit enter nothing happened. When I tried it from DOS directly, as listed above, it worked perfectly and completely removed the DisplayLink software packages.

Also, were you booting the computer with the USB adapters attached? It might not bluescreen if you unplug them, assuming you haven't already tried this.
 
Quote from Bolimomo:

I got a newly self-built I5 box.

More...

"Got"? You mean you built it? If so, you of all people should know about mobos with single x16 slot when considering 4 or more monitors.
:D
 
Quote from Dart:

This should help, run it from DOS though, open cmd.exe and put the file where you can find it (I used the main C: drive). Then change directory with "cd" to the C: drive. Then type the name of the exe file.

http://www.displaylink.com/support/ticket.php?id=297

Click DisplayLink Install Cleaner.
More...

Thanks for the link, Dart.

The DisplayLink Install Cleaner appeared to have worked. I am back to a regular Windows 7 (normal mode) and it appeared stable. No more blue screen. And the DisplayLink software entries in "Programs and Features" are gone. I am back to 3 monitors.
 
Quote from Scataphagos:

"Got"? You mean you built it? If so, you of all people should know about mobos with single x16 slot when considering 4 or more monitors.
:D
More...

Yeah, Scat. I built it. It was actually the shell of an old Compaq SR5710F retired 3 years ago when I built my i7-930 box. I couldn't resist the sales from Fry's on a MSI MoBo and i5 chip combo for $210 with rebate. Thought I would revived the box given it a new MoBo and CPU and DDR3 RAM (unfortunately couldn't reuse the old DDR2 RAM). The speed is decent. Over 6000+ passmark score. I didn't think of graphics-heavy on it but would drive as many monitors as I have spared.
 
Quote from Bolimomo:

Thanks for the link, Dart.

The DisplayLink Install Cleaner appeared to have worked. I am back to a regular Windows 7 (normal mode) and it appeared stable. No more blue screen. And the DisplayLink software entries in "Programs and Features" are gone. I am back to 3 monitors.
More...

Yup, removed it from control panel for me too. Tool really works :)
 
My final resolution:

Got a HDMI-to-VGA adapter. Run 2 monitors from the motherboard (the Intel HD graphics), one directly VGA, second one via HDMI-to-VGA. Then run the 2 external See2Extreme USB-to-DVI adapters. 4 monitors now on this new box.

Saved myself one SIIG-to-VGA Pro adapter. And saved myself an EVGA 8400 GS card.

For whatever reason, the third See2Extreme just wouldn't work on this system. (I did have a maximum of 4 See2Extreme USB-to-DVI adapters working on the same computer before.)

I even bought a new power supply just in case. Looks like I don't need to use it. I just re-used the old 250W power supply from the old Compaq computer. I wouldn't be able to add on anything to the PCIe X16 slot or x1 slots. Probably the PCIe bus needs extra power from the extra 4-pin on the 24-pin ATX power cable (I got only 20-pin).

My goal on this box is minimize the costs. A toal of about $260, that's new CPU, new MoBo, new 4GB DDR3 RAM. Everything else is from the old box. Not too bad. (Though I wish I could steal a 4GB DDR3 RAM from somewhere... :D ).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top