Dual display problem

[Aquallama]

Greetings everyone,
I recently sold my old 7900GS after upgrading to the 8600GT, the problem is that the 7900GS that i sold, according to the buyer is having an issue - he has two LCD displays one 22 inch and another 19 inch.
From what i was able to gather the 22 inch has a much higher native resolution then the 19 inch - the problem starts here, the card works fine on one monitor but when he starts trying to mess around with the dual monitor display options he runs into some trouble.

Apparently the Span option causes him some grief, it will work correctly on one monitor but the 19 inch will only display in much lower resolution settings and will often default back to 640X400, but when he uses the clone option both displays work fine.
Now the card came factory over clocked (but never ran at over 48C at a full load) and the guy insists that could be what the problem is, dispite the fact the clone option works fine and prior to selling the card to him i was using the dual monitor span display setting on my Proview 19'inch wide screen 1440X900 with my old 17 inch CRT at 1280X1024 with no issue what so ever.

The most interesting thing that caused me to suspect some dodge dealings was the fact that this individual did not request a full refund but only a portion of his money back, now i think anyone in their right mind that thought a card that had been damaged due to over clocking would want a full refund,
So is this guy having a genuine issue or is he just trying to screw me?
any help would be much appreciated!

[Hitman]

The problem is not the card, it's a PEBCAK (Problem Exist Between Chair and Keyboard)

When he opens up the Properties screen He should see two monitor icons labeled 1 and 2. He needs to right click on each one go to properties and set the proper resolution for the monitor.

[PrOLifIC_onE]

Aqua, unfortunately we do not know you or him, so we will not be able to tell if anyone is screwing anyone. If everything worked find for you, you have a couple options. Continue to troubleshoot, tell him that it was working fine for you and leave it at that or (assuming this was an online sale) just refund him the money and get the card back. BUT if everything was working fine for you then who's to say HE didn't do something to the card to mess it up??

Most likely neither of you did anything wrong and there is some other underlying issue with his system but without him posting and listing his system specs then our help will be a bit limited.

Im sure many people will have some suggestions as the day goes on but here are a couple suggestions that came to mind real quick:

If you were using any drivers other than the latest Nvidia drivers then you should let him know what you were using.

Another thought is to have him try it all on low settings then work up. Like put both on 800x600 (or a wide-screen equivalnet) and at 16bit color, then see if that works as clone and then as a dual span display.

Also what operating system does he have? I had some issues on Vista64 with my 7900gt that never occurred in XP, so you never know what might be the culprit (which is why we need the system specs).

Keep in touch. Let us know what you try out and ultimately let us know what fixes the problem.

[Aquallama]

Thanks for the replies guys, im probably going to take the stance that he has done something to damage the card on the install, he keeps insisting that i have damaged the card via overclocking, dispite the fact the card comes factory overclocked.
I gave him the driver disk that came with the card itself, (they worked perfectly fine for me).
He has windows XP and was previously running a 6600GT, evidently every time he attempts to run a game, it crashes, but the thing im beginning to find strange is the fact the card that i have apparently FRIED via OC'ing will even let his computer boot.

He made the mistake of accusing me off all kinds of things (OC'ing the card, killing it, then trying to sell it) in a store where 3 of my good friends work, if i was indeed going to do something like the above, would it not be smart to sell online (not that i would do it)
I am probably going to take the stance of not refunding him his money at this point, simply because, had i not told him the card came factory over clocked, he would have never known and thus not even be able to blame me for the issue (how he can even rationalize blaming me for a factory over clock is beyond me)

[Stormcrow]

This makes me wonder, did he uninstall the drivers for the 6600GT? Could be a conflict between the two, the old one and the ones off the disc. They're both nVidia based, but you never know. Also, you should always get the newest drivers from the website, the ones on the disc are normally the first ones for that particular card. Another question that comes to mind, whats the rating on the power supply? An underpowered PSU will always cause some nice glitches. Using an ATi chipset board? Thats been known to cause problems with Nvidia based cards. Is the PCI-E power plugged into the card? The 6600GT doesn't have one of those, and too many people complain the card doesnt work cause they don't know about the 6-pin connector. Card seated corrected? If its not secure, it won't boot. Adequate cooling in the case? Could be overheating and giving problems. If the card is from XFX, BFG, or Evga then theres a lifetime warranty on it if you registered, so if you did just have him send it in and discuss the overclock with them. A factory overclock can kill the card if it doesnt get the proper cooling, and not enough juice from the PSU will cause problems as well. If it was the overclock, then there'd be artifacts and random bluescreens and the like before it finally let go of the ghost.

[fstroupe]

IMO, the new nVidia control panel sux if you are going dual screen. The old method was simple, the "1" and "2" mentioned above. I was toying with the idea of doing dual with my 7900GS a couple of weeks ago....I never really figured out how to make it work right and just said screw it, had no prob whatsoever with the old format.

Wasn't really a big enough of a deal to get help with it, it wouldn't have been a permanent thing anyway. I didn't spend very long screwing with it, I'm sure I probably would have figured it out eventually.

I would say that your buyer is having the same problem. Go to his house and use the drivers that came with the 6600GT to show him nothing is wrong with the card.

[PrOLifIC_onE]

Originally Posted by fstroupe

Wasn't really a big enough of a deal to get help with it, it wouldn't have been a permanent thing anyway. I didn't spend very long screwing with it, I'm sure I probably would have figured it out eventually.

Yeah, the new control panel just does it a different way. ("if it ain't broke, dont fix it" IMHO). But if it were a priority you definitely would have figured it out in no time. It's just switching over to something new is always a PITA. But it is easy to change by also going to the Display Properties/Settings tab as mentioned above.

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

I think conflicting drivers is the problem. The 6600GT drivers have to be deleted and wiped cleanly, even though they're both nVidia cards.

[Aquallama]

Sorry for the late reply, i took the card home, tried it in my box and it worked perfectly fine, i just refunded the idiot his money and sold it to someone else, who absolutely loves the card.
Thanks for all the replies/help guys, this thread can be /closed now i guess