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?![]()


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