Interesting about the 2 separate cards. 4 years ago about this time, I bought my current system -- a Dell desktop and separately bought an Appian Rushmore card (that supports 4 digital monitors). I was able to get everything running pretty quickly. At that time, Nvdia had just come out with the Quattro card and I couldn't find it anywhere. Appian's customer service was fairly helpful when I asked about their card. I haven't had any problems with it. Not sure what the "standard" now is as far as multi-monitor cards are concerned.
Ok, this is what I thought you'd get with pulling the working card and then setting up the other one separately. I rarely let folks install the same card in a computer, it invites too much trouble from the outset. While it is doable, it is also a bit troublesome. And the color issue has been one that they've enjoyed for a long time. It's like a personal comfort thing. Each person has different tastes, some folks don't mind the quirky (to me) color sets. I still say pop over to eBay and get eye satisfaction at a great price!
Good to see you got it working... However your problem was in the fact that you used "3rd party cards in a multi-card setup".... the *Prowler* ATI cards. If you had used *genuine* ATI cards (not "powered by ATI"), you probably would have not had the same trouble. My BEST experience with 3rd party cards in multi-card was like yours... lots of fussing around to eventually get it working right. My WORST experience forced me to reinstall the OS.
Yeah. the color thing sucks to me. They're not rich or vibrant at all. Everything is sharp and clear though. I'll give you an example of the color-- You know how there is alternating beige colors between one post from the other here on Elitetrader? Well on my old machine, the difference was clearly visible, but now, I can barely tell the difference. Nothing's rich. The blacks aren't really black, same with the greens and blues. Oh well, I'm just happy everything's working.
Hmm, I was into work. I was: remote monitoring a running server backup planning a network configuration for a new client listening to some great music readying for a corporate server relocation project for today enjoying a cup of earl grey surfing through Elite Trader Just a normal busy morning in the life of a superhero!
I once bought a card which the CSR on the phone swore was "genuine ATI" to use in a 4 card + TV tuner setup. Turns out, the card was really a Sapphire ATI. I eventually got it to work, but it was a grind. The install disk had at least 4 setup files (4 that I saw, maybe had more)... and it didn't list the 4 and let me choose, nooooo. IT selected one of the 4 based upon what I already had installed, and wouldn't let me select another. (It wouldn't install if I just clicked on the other setup files from the directory, either). Only one of the files was correct for my setup. If it offered one of the others, tough luck... I had to uninstall the others and reinstall everything again. It was trial-and-error to figure out which order to install cards so that this one would "offer" the correct setup file. And of course, I couldn't install it FIRST... the others wouldn't install correctly then. Sheesh.
Why not save a lot of money. Go to www.newegg.com Buy all the parts you need, make sure they are compatable. Newegg has awesome policies about returning stuff so you can take some time to make sure everything works. Buy a cheap but fast CPU, and a $100 mother board. Then buy a 40 - 60 gig hard drive if you want to be cheap. Then buy the vid card that you need for your set-up. The rest is just buying the case, cd/dvd drive, memory, powersupply. It's really not that hard. They have easy to follow guides online showing how to build PC's from the very start to very end. My first time I built a pc the only problem I had was I forgot to plug in the connector to power on the whole thing, after I did, it worked perfectly.
You know, I actually considered it. But after I priced all the parts of the equivalent of what I'm running now, it was actually MORE expensive. And that was without a monitor. With Dell, I got all the upgrades (CPU, memory, XPpro, 17' LCD) and delivered to my front door. Although the delivery part ended up costing me $150.00. The computer package itself was $873.00. I don't know how Dell does it but as far as I'm concerned, you can't beat it.