Dual Monitor: Login screen on wrong monitor

[Pakman]

Hi all.

Need some help with a dual monitor setup. Primary monitor is connected through DVI, secondary monitor which is a HDTV is connected through VGA. When I boot Windows XP, the XP loading screen shows up on my primary monitor, but when it gets to the login screen, it goes blank and the login prompt shows up on the secondary HDTV monitor. I don't keep the HDTV monitor on all the time so it's kind of a hassle. Once I log into Windows, both monitors display fine. I checked in the display properties and changed the lcd as the primary. Any ideas on how to get that login screen to display on the primary monitor?

 

[Billb2]

Auto login?
Interesting problem. Anything in Ntune/RivaTuner for that?
Ultramon has a setting to locate the upper left corner of the primary and/or secondary monitors at any pixel. This is different than moving the monitors around in Windows Display Properties, I think...perhaps.........

 

[Pakman]

Can't do auto login because the PC is on a domain. It's using the built-in Intel graphics.

 

[RebateMonger]

Are you using a display control other than the built-in XP control? I've never seen a case where the XP login (I assume you're using XP?) showed up anywhere other than the "Primary Monitor". This is in cases where one monitor is the "Primary Monitor", and the other (secondary) monitor has checked, "Extend my Windows Display onto this Monitor".

 

[cvstrat]

So you are running two video cards? One onboard Intel VGA and one PCI(e) with VGA? I wasn't sure because typically you don't get both DVI and VGA on an on-board card. If you are running two separate cards that is probably where the issue comes in.

The reason I suspect this is because when you have both monitors plugged into a single video card you will get the same picture on both screens until windows loads the display settings and realizes have you have two monitors and it then routes to the primary display.

My guess is your BIOS recognizes the addon card as primary until windows loads and it detects the onboard and sets it as primary thereby switching your login screen to the onboard connection. Once you login possibly your nvidia display manager corrects the problem and your display pops back to your onboard connection.

Of course I'm basing this all off assumptions but if this is in fact the case I'm not sure of a way to force windows to utilize one card of the other on startup. There might be a way but not that I know of. Consolidating to one graphics card would likely fix the issue.

Let me know if this helps.

You could also just plug your monitor into the VGA port and put the TV on the VGI (may need an adapter) port. Then go into BIOS and set the onboard as primary. Of course then you have crappy graphics performance on the monitor. Just a thought.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: cvstrat I'm not sure of a way to force windows to utilize one card of the other on startup. .

Windows uses the first card it sees for post/boot. So, with two video cards, you just switch the cards to each others slots to change which is used as primary for post/boot. (Or change the cables on the monitors to control which monitor is used for post/boot.)

But with:
One onboard video w/two outputs ....????
Onboard video + another video card ....????
Perhaps some noodling around in the bios........????