PC with 3 monitors

[Donald]

I am still fooling with the PC and church that has 3 HDMI monitors or similar attached. All via USB to HDMI adapters.

I have suggested a 3 HDMI card.

We have trouble with the monitors switching which is 1 or 2 or 3.
.
So my question is, are the numbers determined by what monitor is online when the PC is being powered up?

There is a 1) normal HDMI computer monitor, 2) a HDMI to SDI converter, and 3) HDMI 4 way splitter.

I assume to make sure its the safest, all monitors should be fully powered up before the PC is powered up??

I think problem arise let's say if #2 is not operation when the PC is being powered up then what should be #3 end,s up being #2. When #2 is operational then it becomes #3?

Am I understanding this correctly?

 

[Rand]

If they are hardwired 1 will always remain 1.

if you start it up with just monitor 2 on.. then turn on 1.. 1 will go back to being main display if you have it so setup.

not sure about janky usb to hdmi gear though.

So my question is, are the numbers determined by what monitor is online when the PC is being powered up?

no./sorta, its more what devices are plugged in on startup. since its USB.
maybe if the monitor isnt powered on the "usb adapter to hdmi" does not get a number until its on?
I dont have any to test it.

My computer remembers monitor numbers through being powered off or even unplugged.
so Its likely the USB dongle setup.
What I think is happening.
The computer likely assigns them a number on boot which changes sometimes
throwing off the monitor numbers.

Vs a video card with ports that are always assigned the same "number".

That is simplified.. no big words Been up since 2am.

Is there a pci express slot available?

Many video cards have went to DP, finding one with more than 1 or 2 hdmi might be an issue.

for example the intel arc b570 note 3 DP and 1 hdmi.

 

[Pew]

In a traditional setup with the monitors plugged directly into the PC or active hub and not via splitters or passive converters, the hwid is passed on and the PC will remember the last known positions of the monitor and adjust automatically. In your setup, the USB dongle, especially the sdi and the HDMI splitter, probably do not pass the hwid of the monitors It's probably switching them around based off what drivers load first so having them turned on first will only mitigate but not fully solve your problem. Having them plugged directly into a GPU will work, but you'll have to get a separate SDI card if you want to get rid of that usb to sdi converter.

 

[tom slick]

At work I run 3 monitors (hdmi) plugged into a video card that supports 4 mini-dvi ports. The monitors never change position.

 

[Donald]

In a traditional setup with the monitors plugged directly into the PC or active hub and not via splitters or passive converters, the hwid is passed on and the PC will remember the last known positions of the monitor and adjust automatically. In your setup, the USB dongle, especially the sdi and the HDMI splitter, probably do not pass the hwid of the monitors It's probably switching them around based off what drivers load first so having them turned on first will only mitigate but not fully solve your problem. Having them plugged directly into a GPU will work, but you'll have to get a separate SDI card if you want to get rid of that usb to sdi converter.

The converters are HDMI to SDI. The video adapters are USB to HDMI.

Can you suggest a PCI express video card with 2 or 3 HDMI? We only need 1080P @60Hz

 

[Pew]

The converters are HDMI to SDI. The video adapters are USB to HDMI.

Can you suggest a PCI express video card with 2 or 3 HDMI? We only need 1080P @60Hz

This ASROCK ARC A380 or Sparkle Arc A380 - but it comes with 1 HDMI and 3 DisplayPorts; so if you don't mind using a DP>HDMI converter, it'll work. On the plus side is you won't find anything new this cheap that supports this many ports that supports DisplayPort 2.0, and HDMI 2.0.

Another option you can do is buy a powered thunderbolt docking station/port replicator with HDMI ports if the church PC has a thunderbolt connection. The wavlink ones I get for work is $89 on sale.

 

[Donald]

Maybe this graphics card?

 

[Pew]

Maybe this graphics card?

View attachment 323601

Yep that'll work great!

 

[Donald]

Yep that'll work great!

So I pulled the cover on the desktop PC and my now hoping you can confirm I have a PCIe slot and the VisionTek card will fit.

There is a comment in the second attachment "the PCI express X16 works in X8 lanes only". Not exactly sure what that means.

It's been years (decades?) since I built my first computer as a kit.

 

[Pew]

So I pulled the cover on the desktop PC and my now hoping you can confirm I have a PCIe slot and the VisionTek card will fit.

There is a comment in the second attachment "the PCI express X16 works in X8 lanes only". Not exactly sure what that means.

It's been years (decades?) since I built my first computer as a kit.

View attachment 324645

View attachment 324647

Perfect, yep the top slot is the PCI-E x16 slot the GPU will go into. It's running at x8 but that will not affect the performance for that video card so it should be plug-n-play and Windows should automatically detect and start downloading the required drivers once booted.

 

[Donald]

Perfect, yep the top slot is the PCI-E x16 slot the GPU will go into. It's running at x8 but that will not affect the performance for that video card so it should be plug-n-play and Windows should automatically detect and start downloading the required drivers once booted.

OK, ordered the VidionTek card.

So the VisionTeK card has a really fast GPU and tons of memory. How do 3 cheap looking USB to HDMI adapters do almost the same thing? Maybe it's the fact that the USB to HDMI adapter runs at 1080@60 Hz and the VisionTek card can run at 4K@60 Hz. The streaming this computer is used for at the church only runs at 1080@60 Hz as I think that's all the PTZ camera runs at.

 

[Donald]

I got and installed the VisionTek card. I should point out that monitors 2 & 3 are not normal monitors. One is a HDMI to SDI adapter. The other is a 50' HDMI cable connected to a 4 way HDMI splitter which goes to 4 TV screens mounted on the walls.

Monitor 1 is a normal PC monitor connected through a display port to HDMI adapter.

Monitor 2 & 3 are connected to the new VisionTek card.

As I understand things Windows reads the EDID info from each monitor which includes the name along with the screen capabilities (like 1080@60) and stores in that info in the Windows registry so if you move monitors from one port to another the monitor number stays the sane. Or if a monitor is not powered on when the PC is booted.

However after some testing and fooling around it does not seem like Windows 11 keeps the monitor on the monitor number consistently. It seems to depend on what is powered on when the PC is booted.

Going into advanced settings I see 3 different names for the 3 different monitors so it would seem Windows was able to read some or all of the EDID information.

No real conclusions yet.

We do know the 50' HDMI cable is too long and that run needs to be converted to SDI.

 

[Donald]

AVMatrix said they would return the same name if two of their HDMI to SDI adapters were connected. I think the standard is a name, serial number and date of manufacture. Not just a name.

 

[Pew]

AVMatrix said they would return the same name if two of their HDMI to SDI adapters were connected. I think the standard is a name, serial number and date of manufacture. Not just a name.

It might be the same name/serial if the internal components did not get revised. Device manager would pick up both of them but wouldn't be able to distinguish one from the other.

 

[Donald]

It might be the same name/serial if the internal components did not get revised. Device manager would pick up both of them but wouldn't be able to distinguish one from the other.

That's not my current problem but might be after I convert some long HDMI cables to SDI.

 

[tburke]

Out of curiosity, is this for ProPresenter or a similar graphics display platform?

My church is a Mac shop, but we ended up putting a Blackmagic Deck Link card in our ProPresenter machine -- SDI out, and it will only output graphics from ProPresenter instead of the full MacOS (or Windows) desktop. There's also some logic involved that ensures the correct output is used at all times. Works exceptionally well, compared to using HDMI out on a video card...