Three monitors - third one lags a lot

[drjones]

Hi....so I was parting out an old, dead PC & installed two nVidia GeForce 8600GTS graphics cards into my personal/work PC a few months ago.

Here are my system specs:

- i7 2600k
- 12GB
- 128GB SSD
- Win7 Ultimate x64
- Primary monitor: Dell S2409W
- Second monitor Dell E2210H
- Third: HP 2311x

I recently hooked up a third monitor, just an old POS I had sitting around to see what it would be like to have three monitors.

Well the third monitor was always really laggy whenever displaying any animations or scrolling on webpages or a 1-2 page word doc. Last night I got a new monitor - that 23" HP - and connected it with an actual DVI cable; the old monitor was VGA with a DVI adapter. I thought maybe that would help with the lag I noticed on the third display.

I updated the drivers to the absolute latest from nVidia's site - 9.18.13.2723 - but still have the same problem.

I can drag the same exact window - say, Google Calendar - to the first or second monitor & it functions perfectly, but when I drag it onto that third screen, there is very noticeable lag when scrolling through basic webpages; Google Calendar, basic word docs with text only, etc.

Of course I've googled the problem & found other people experiencing it, so I know it's not just me....are those graphics cards just too old/underpowered to drive three monitors at 1920x1080?

I'm not doing any gaming (wish I had the time!) or videos, I notice the lag even on basic webpages.

I don't even have anything else running when I notice the lag; I can reboot, open up ONE chrome window, throw it onto that third screen & its laggy as heck.

I poked around the nVidia control panel & didn't see any settings that jumped out at me.

Ideas?

 

[JustInspired]

So the two normally functioning monitors are on the same card?

If so, what happens when you swap cables around? Or cards around?

Are they in SLi mode? Not that it should make a difference...

I just set up four big monitors on two really cheap HD5450 cards and they are running perfectly.

 

[PCSComputerGuy]

Are they all on the same card? Went to a clients that had two on one card and one on onboard video and the onboard lagged like crazy... Even dragging windows around was painful..

 

[phaZed]

There is a known issue with DWM and Aero when running more than one monitor and displaying DirectX/3D and/or OpenGL on more than one monitor at a time (And yes, Chrome is an graphically accelerated program so it falls into this category).

You can try disabling Aero and see if that helps out..

 

[Methical]

(And yes, Chrome is an graphically accelerated program so it falls into this category). You can try disabling Aero and see if that helps out..

Yeah I found this out the other day; when FRAPS produced a FPS counter in the top right hand corner of my Chrome. 30FPS? Must be FPS-Limited.

When I ran my Game Booster script, which disables Aero and a number of other things, it jumped up to around 70-80 mark.

I know this is slightly off-topic, but it is reconfirming phaZed's comment about conflicts with Aero on multi-monitor setups.

 

[drjones]

Yep, unchecking "use visual styles on windows & buttons" did the trick....now the third monitor is about as zippy & responsive as the other two....too bad, it did look better the other way though.

Would better/newer graphics cards be able to handle Aero?

 

[phaZed]

Would better/newer graphics cards be able to handle Aero?

As far as I recall the problem exists within the DWM programming in Vista/7 and isn't a hardware deficiency. Windows 8 doesn't have this problem, presumably because Windows 8 doesn't make use of Aero.

 

[drjones]

As far as I recall the problem exists within the DWM programming in Vista/7 and isn't a hardware deficiency. Windows 8 doesn't have this problem, presumably because Windows 8 doesn't make use of Aero.

What's "DWM"?

 

[drjones]

So the two normally functioning monitors are on the same card?

If so, what happens when you swap cables around? Or cards around?

Are they in SLi mode? Not that it should make a difference...

I just set up four big monitors on two really cheap HD5450 cards and they are running perfectly.

Yes, the two normally functioning monitors are on the same card, the second card is only driving the third monitor, no they aren't in SLI.

Are they all on the same card? Went to a clients that had two on one card and one on onboard video and the onboard lagged like crazy... Even dragging windows around was painful..

Nope, see above; two cards, four ports; two monitors in one card, the third one that's the only one plugged into the second card is the laggy one...

 

[phaZed]

What's "DWM"?

Desktop Window Manager, dwm.exe

 

[drjones]