Multiple monitors and card drivers in Vista

[Guest]

I was ecstatic. I checked the drivers XP used for both my NVidia cards, an
old MX2 and a new 7200, and they were the same! Joy! I ran out and spent my
hard earned cash on Vista Home Premium. After some frustration getting it
installed Vista is finally in, and it disables the MX2 card. New
installation for dual booting with XP. I look at the drivers, and THEY'RE
DIFFERENT! I go back to XP, and they're still the same. Vista has new,
different drivers for these two NVidia cards and refuses to run both cards
together. THIS SUCKS! Is there any option other than running two monitors
off of the one card? Why the blue raging heck can't I have the same driver,
just like in XP, so I can run both cards with Vista? Its been a week now,
and I haven't booted Vista back up again.
Has anyone heard of any product being developed to fix this problem Vista
has with dual video cards?

 

[Ron Miller]

I was ecstatic. I checked the drivers XP used for both my NVidia cards, an
old MX2 and a new 7200, and they were the same! Joy! I ran out and spent my
hard earned cash on Vista Home Premium. After some frustration getting it
installed Vista is finally in, and it disables the MX2 card. New
installation for dual booting with XP. I look at the drivers, and THEY'RE
DIFFERENT! I go back to XP, and they're still the same. Vista has new,
different drivers for these two NVidia cards and refuses to run both cards
together. THIS SUCKS! Is there any option other than running two monitors
off of the one card? Why the blue raging heck can't I have the same driver,
just like in XP, so I can run both cards with Vista? Its been a week now,
and I haven't booted Vista back up again.
Has anyone heard of any product being developed to fix this problem Vista
has with dual video cards?

Some old cards are just not supported in Vista drivers whereas they were
in the older XP/2000 drivers. The nVidia Vista driver states explicitly
that it supports only 8800, GeForce 7 series, and GeForce 6 series
cards. It specifically does NOT support MX2 cards.

What's wrong with running two monitors off one card??? You ask that as
if it's not the preferred solution when in reality it IS.
The ONLY reason I'd install a second video card is if I wanted more than
two monitors -- i.e., if I wanted only two monitors, I'd always run them
from one video card, assuming that the card's capable of supporting
multiple monitors, which virtually all "modern" cards like your 7200 are.

If for some reason you're not telling us, you really need two video
cards, check the Vista hardware-compatibility lists for a supported card
and buy a different one. If an archaic MX2 card was satisfactory under
XP, then you should be able to get a second card that is supported by
Vista for very little money. For example, Newegg has a 6200 that will
run in a PCI slot here http://tinyurl.com/33h34a for less than $40.

Ron