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Trading: Index and Bond Futures and Options, Stocks and Stock Options
Posts: 17 since Jan 2012
Thanks Given: 29
Thanks Received: 18
I have replaced the Windows XP Pro 32-bit os with a fresh installation of Windows Seven Pro 64-bit.
The nVidia Quadro NVS 440 video card was doing very well with the previous os, and with the multimonitor nView Desktop Manager the support of my 4 monitors was perfect.
With Windows Seven I have installed the latest driver available and the nVidia Control Panel. Set up of monitors has not been difficult. On the contrary, quite often (it may happen 1-2 times to 10-20 times in one hour) all monitors go black for a short while (typically 2-5 seconds; sometimes 10-15 seconds; very seldom 5-15 minutes) and then the signal gets back. While the screens are black, the PC continues to run as normal. I have tried many different set-ups, with no improvements.
The PC is quite new, with no RAM or disk space bottlenecks, and it does not show any other malfunction.
I would prefern not to buy a new video card as the power of the Quadro NVS 440 is more than enough, and despite it's fanless the working temperature is pretty low (below 95°F at any time).
Might want to try an "older version" of the driver, not the "latest." As I recall there is a web page that describes the changes in each driver upgrade. These video cards have been around a long time and IMO, are rock solid. Good luck finding a fix.
I think that your card is simply outdated. 256 MB VRAM is too little for connecting 4 monitors. Also your card has the worst of all possible video benchmarks.
I use a passive Asus Direct CU Silent GT 640 adapter for connecting 3 monitors, which sells for 90 €. The VRAM is 2 GByte (that is about 8 times more than your card) and the PassMark - G3D Mark of this card is 1,017 versus 41 (LOL) for the Quadro NVS 440.
Prior to the GT 640 cards, I had used two cards with 256 MB each for running 3 monitors with a resolution of 1920 x 1200, and I regularly ran into issues. If I ran into issues with 2 x 256 MByte, you should also run into issues with 1 x 256 Mbyte.
Different options to connect 4 monitors
(1) If you have two single PCIe graphics slots you can use a pair of Sapphire HD 6450 cards. Each of them comes with 2048 MByte VRAM. PassMark - G3D Mark is 233. The card is a passive card (no noise) with low energy consumption (18 W max). The price tag is 50 € per card.
(2) If you have one double PCIe graphics slot, you could try a Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 Ultimate Passiv. This only comes with 1024 MByte of VRAM, but you should be able to connect 4 monitors, 1 via HDMI, one via DVI and the to other ones via an active adapter connected to the displayport. The Passmark - G3D Mark is 1629. The card is a passive card, power consumption is up to 55 W (compare to 2 x 18 W above). The price tag is about 90 €.
(3) If you look for a graphics card that comes with
- 2096 MByte of VRAM
- and 4 ports to connect your 4 monitors
the cheapest that I have found is the Zotac NVidia GTX 650, which sells for 100 €. The PassMark - G3D Mark is at 1832, which is 45 times more than your current video card.
(make sure to select the model with the 2 DVI + 2 displayport adaptors)
100 € should easily fix your problem and you will also see the overall performance of your PC improved. The Nvidia drivers auto-install and you simply need to configure the positions of your monitors.
Trading: Index and Bond Futures and Options, Stocks and Stock Options
Posts: 17 since Jan 2012
Thanks Given: 29
Thanks Received: 18
Thanks Cashish for your help.
In the last weeks I had tried several drivers and several versions of the Control Panel, with no success.
As a matter of fact, while browsing the web I also found the new that nVidia discontinued the support of multimonitor management tools for old videocards, so that there are problems when running with Windows 7, Vista and 8.
So that the problem may be the multimonitor control panel, and it should not be the driver itself which has been released for more recent o.s.
Trading: Index and Bond Futures and Options, Stocks and Stock Options
Posts: 17 since Jan 2012
Thanks Given: 29
Thanks Received: 18
Very detailed answer. I appreciate a lot those info. Thanks.
Despite that trading platforms usually do not absorb a lot of resources (AMD still sells 256MB and 512MB video cards fo financial and medical multimonitor 2D purposes) I know my video card it's obsolete. Furthermore, the cost of a new video card is likely to be lower than the cost saving associated with fixing the problem, or try to fix it. From that point of view, it's easy to say that going for a 1MB or 2MB RAM video card makes more sense than getting a smaller one.
Therefore I will start looking for a new video card. The motherboard of the two PCs I use have two and three PCIe 16x graphic slots, so that that shouldn't limit my possibilities.
I agree, "trading platforms usually do not absorb a lot of resources," but I also believe most "Traders" don't actually have a stand alone computer designated entirely for their trading programs. I've been running 8 HDMI monitors from (4) NVS 295's that I bought for $15.00 ea. on Ebay. The motherboard has 5 PCIe 16 slots so the 4 cards run at X8. I've never had any issues since the day I built the machine, Win 7 Pro.
Now, if I ALSO wanted to check email, web surf, watch movies, balance my check book or photo shop some family pictures or videos while I was "trading" the old 295's might start giving me trouble. But 2 dozen charts from 3 data feeds, a few spreadsheets and 5 programs have been no problem.
I had that card, but it died right after warrantee ran out. Since then I've been using multiple machines ea w/ a monitor which is fine since i use different platforms for what i used to view on one.... I decided to just try a new card since i was amazed it was only $40 or so at microcenter near me. 1gb dvi, vga & hdmi, it had the parts for half-height slot. It turns out that it can also do multiple monitors, I was surprised since I didn't get it for that.... but I'm only using 2. I think I may have paid $250 for my old quadro. PNY GeForce 210
Trading: Index and Bond Futures and Options, Stocks and Stock Options
Posts: 17 since Jan 2012
Thanks Given: 29
Thanks Received: 18
I have made minor changes to the os. It took some time as I had to learn about that bs (I am a Win 7 newbe). One of them has been disabling the AERO feature embedded in Windows 7. Though I am not 100% sure that Aero was the cause, this week I have not experienced any such video "black out". :-)
I will start looking for a new video card in order to have more RAM for the GPU. But I am no more in a hurry, so that I'll take the time to look for a good deal, so that my PC, my wallet and I will all be happy.