Triple Monitor boot behavior

I would like to determine if the boot behavior of my 2 PCI-E video cards driving 3 monitors is normal, and what others with Dual non-Crossfire cards and triple displays are seeing during post and XP load.

I have 2 identical ATI x1900xtx and 3 vp2130b monitors connected with DVI-D Dual link cables, XP-Pro, mobo is Asus P5WDH, 650W PSU (which I THINK is enough power). The monitors onboard setup menus are set to input priority DVI-D and all 3 are recognized by XP. In the following routine the monitors are numbered 1-2-3 (left to right).... also monitors 1 and 2 are plugged into the top card which is in PCI-E slot #1, and the third monitor is connected to the card in PCI-E slot #2.

This whole boot to desktop takes about 1 minute.

Push power-on button, first I hear video card #1 fan spin-up and see screens 1 and 2 showing bios post. Screen 3 is still black, and second card (in PCI-E slot #2) is not audible yet.

Bios post finishes in roughly 30 seconds, screens 1 & 2 go to black (with onscreen "no signal" indicator), followed by what sounds like the second video card fan spinning-up (identical sound to first card). All three screens are now black with no signal indicators.

After about 15 seconds (assuming XP is loading), all 3 monitors in succession (any combination 2-1-3, 3-2-1, 1-2-3) go from black to powered-on state with backlights on but screens still dark, followed by desktops on all 3. Then I logon and all 3 identical (not stretched) wallpapers appear simultaneously.

So my question is, is it normal behavior that the video cards initialize separately? I am assuming a video card in slot #1 gets priority (based on what I've read about dual cards in Crossfire configuration where the CF card should be in slot 1, but my cards are NOT Crossfire). And to follow-up do others see bios post on all 3 screens, or is there a possible reason why I'm not seeing that?

Only reasons I can think of are:
1. my 650W PSU is not strong enough and must manage power to the extent it starts the slot #2 card later?

2. The bios settings for my P5WDH (currently not OC'd) should be set differently, such as possibly more voltage?

What if any other bios settings would affect the above scenario? Anyone with knowledge explain what I see and/or whether or not I'm looking for trouble when there really is none? :surrender:

that sounds about right to me. if i remember correctly the bois boot system goes like this.

Vga bios ( first vga card) -> main bios -> any other bioses(disk controllers, seconard cards).

Hey thanks, This topic could easily stray from "Graphics Cards and Monitors" as the specific answer involves bios code and steps a bios makes during post. Your answer did explain the basic routine:)
From what I read elsewhere it seems when bios gets to the point of checking system hardware, it looks at the PRIMARY or first video card only, checks it, and gives the bios boot screen that we see, and moves on to checking USB ports (for wireless keyboard allowing delete key bios access), and checks RAM.

On my system it then seems to reset the 2 screens attached to Primary video card (in slot1).

Then a few seconds later bios looks for other hardware such as secondary video card, hence the delay on second video card activation? I'm now wondering if bios has already handed-off to XP and it is XP that activates the second video card.

Yes all correct you don`t need any extra power bios setting should be pci`e 1 / pci`e 2 and then PCI Express x1 or pci based graphic cards. note the more cards you have the slower the bootup time.

I cant' reply to help, but I've thanked you because that has to be the best description of a problem, well thought out and well worded, that I've seen for months :)

what do you mean?


I had one problem not long ago and it went like this...


HeLP, me No nOt WHat Me IS Doing. It Not Work After me Mess with The gubbins.