PC Graphics

[PazuzusPruneJuice]

Hey all, hopefully I'm posting this in the right place. I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than myself might be able to shed a little light onto the issue I'm having with getting display output from a second GPU in Windows.

I'm using a 5700XT as my primary GPU, and an R9 280 as a simple display adapter due to the fact that one of my monitors only supports 144hz over DVI. This setup has worked as expected for years in Linux, and still does.

The issue is that when booted into Windows 10 I am only getting display output from the 5700XT, and nothing from the R9 280.

- The R9 280 shows up in device manager, sometimes with an "err. 43." and sometimes without; disabling and enabling the device clears this error.

- The R9 280 does not show in "Task Manager".

- The R9 280 shows up as "GPU 2" in "AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition", but under "Driver Details" lists the driver version as "Not Available."

- Only the monitor connected to the 5700XT shows up in Windows display settings.

- The issue persists on both current and legacy drivers, as well as with the basic Windows display driver.

- Both cards are getting plenty of power.

- I have tried e-mailing support but received no help as they couldn't seem to understand that I wasn't trying to run the cards in Crossfire, despite me directly stating that I wasn't trying to run the cards in Crossfire. In the off-chance that the cards were trying to run in Crossfire I tried to disable it, but found no option to disable Crossfire in the settings menus.

I'm hoping this is a simple configuration issue, or that I overlooked some obvious setting somewhere. I only installed Windows to play a couple games with friends, so if there is no fix, I'm not too worried.  It would just be nice to not have to tab out constantly.

Thanks a ton.

To address some things preemptively:

- "Just get an active DP-DVI adapter!":  No. I'm using the R9 280 as a display adapter because I had it laying around, and have no desire to spend more money on this system when it works fine 99.9% of the time.

- "Just get new monitors!":  No. I like my monitors and have no interest in buying new ones at this moment.

- "You're taking a performance hit by having two GPUs!":  I don't care.

[mengelag]

Can you not just plug both monitors into the 5700xt and set the refresh rate individually in the Windows display settings for each monitor? It's been a hot minute since I've run Windows 10 though, I'm almost positive you can do that in Windows 11. Correct me if I'm wrong though. 

[PazuzusPruneJuice]

Thanks for replying.

The monitor only supports 144hz over DVI-D, and the 5700XT does not have a DVI-D port.

[mengelag]

What about picking up a DVI-D to HDMI/ Display Port adapter? They are fairly inexpensive.

[PazuzusPruneJuice]

Thanks for replying again.

Quoting part of the footer from the original post;

'- "Just get an active DP-DVI adapter!": No. I'm using the R9 280 as a display adapter because I had it laying around, and have no desire to spend more money on this system when it works fine 99.9% of the time.'

An active DP-DVI adapter from StarTech will cost me around $40 $120 CAD. Money I do not want to spend for a minor annoyance that I only have to deal with for a couple hours a month at most. A passive adapter would be cheaper but would not run the display at 144hz, which at that point it would just be a waste of money as the monitor will do 60hz over HDMI and I could just plug it into the 5700XT and call it a day. (Edit: Active single link would be $40, I would need an active dual link @~$120 CAD.)

I swear I am not trying to be obtuse, I'm just struggling to see how this is anything but a configuration issue. Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Windows to do much troubleshooting beyond rolling back drivers and Googling error codes, which has been fruitless thus far.

[Qoojo]

The 280 is EOL and legacy. I assume you loaded the latest driver for the 5700. The last driver update for 280 was about 2 years ago. Your problem is most likely due to using latest driver on old hardware.

[PazuzusPruneJuice]

Thanks for replying.

As stated in the body of the original post, the issue persists when using legacy drivers as well.

Not stated in the post is that I first observed this issue in late 2019 - early 2020, also with both current (at the time) and legacy drivers, as well as Windows basic display drivers.