Snow Leopard & Digital Triple Head2GO Problems

[NevBull]

Hi All

I have had reports that Digital TripleHead2Go interfaces have issues displaying the third output when using Snow Leopard. Outputs 1&2 are fine, output 3 does not display correctly.

Further reports to follow as we get the chance to test further

Nev.

[gazzer82]

Yes, i have just finished testing and it would appear that there is an issue with these devices on 10.6

The error we are seeing is only effecting the third output and testing was done at 3x1024 x 768 @ 50hz and 60Hz. It manifests itself with the second half of the output displaying a digital white noise. This was on a generation two Mac Pro with an X1900, i haven't had a chance yet to test this on a Gen3 machine with a 4870 but will report back once i have.

The system was setup as a 10.5/10.6 dual boot, upon rebooting the machine into 10.5 all issues where resolved and the THTG performed as expected.

Cheers

Gareth

[SourceChild]

I have a utility I use that hard locks the displays from responding to EDIDs. I'll try it with 10.6 and see if I can alleviate anything.

I will test my digital TH2Gs on each of my 07, 08, 09 machines with x1900, 8800, and 4870 to see if there's a combination that causes or corrects it.

[ajmaudio]

I have a utility I use that hard locks the displays from responding to EDIDs. I'll try it with 10.6 and see if I can alleviate anything.

I will test my digital TH2Gs on each of my 07, 08, 09 machines with x1900, 8800, and 4870 to see if there's a combination that causes or corrects it.

What utility is that? That could be handy... what does this normally help you with?

[rolfwenzel]

Just to chime in, was it only Digital THTG or did somebody encounter the same thing with analog ones?

Not that I got the heat to upgrade but the performance increase of Nevs testing sounds quite impressive

Best

Rolf

[Sven]

Same problem here. DVI inteference only went away when THTG digital edition is run as single output on X1900. Just a monitor short now. Sven

[SourceChild]

What utility is that? That could be handy... what does this normally help you with?

The utility is a shell script which tells the video card to disregard the EDID being sent from the monitors. I then run an application called SwitchRezX which allows me to build the custom resolutions needed by the monitors or TH2G.

It should be noted though that I only have the scripts to access the x1900 and 8800 video cards and only through Leopard. I've been playing around with this today and feel like I'm going to default back to using a DVI black box even though I don't like extra hardware in the chain.

[Sven]

hi
i brought this up with matrox and they blame apple. apparently nvidia is the way to go. please see the correspondence below:
Hi Sven,

This issue has been brought to our attention and it seems to be a driver issue for the ATI video card in your system. All Mac systems running Nvidia cards have not shown this.

I would recommend that you bring this up directly to Apple as the driver needs to be updated by them directly.

We have seen in some cases where closing the lid actually corrects the issue. Please note that this does not apply in all circumstances.

Best Regards,

Emanuele
Technical Support Representative
Technical Support Hotline: (514) 685-0270
Hours of Operation: Monday to Friday from 9AM to 5PM EST

Please quote all previous messages when sending replies.
Visit our Support Center for the latest News, Drivers, FAQs.
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/co...ivers/home.php

From: Noiland Ltd. [mailto:sven@noiland.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 12:59 PM
To: graph_ts_gen@exch1.matrox.com
Subject: Re: Tech Support - United States - General - Request ID: 20623

hi emanuele
it's a duo-core 2.66 GHZ Intel Mac Pro
graphics card is a radeon x1900, which is a duo-link card.

many thanks,
sven







On 16 Sep 2009, at 12:54, Technical Support wrote:


Hi Sven,

What model Mac system are you using?

What is the model of the video card in this system?

Best Regards,

Emanuele
Technical Support Representative
Technical Support Hotline: (514) 685-0270
Hours of Operation: Monday to Friday from 9AM to 5PM EST

Please quote all previous messages when sending replies.
Visit our Support Center for the latest News, Drivers, FAQs.
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/co...ivers/home.php

From: contact@noiland.com [mailto:contact@noiland.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 12:02 PM
To: graph_ts_gen@exch1.matrox.com
Subject: Tech Support - United States - General - Request ID: 20623
Importance: High


Request Product: TripleHead2Go

Product Serial Number: KFK88855

Product Part Number:

Message: PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: (1) MAKE/MODEL OR MOTHERBOARD - Dual Core Intel Xeon, 2.66 (2) OPERATING SYSTEM - 10.6 (3) MATROX DRIVER PACKAGE - n/a (4) DETAILED EXPLANATION FOR CONTACTING US 3rd dvi out put on THTG has white interference in snow leopard. works fine in leopard.

[SourceChild]

I will test my digital TH2Gs on each of my 07, 08, 09 machines with x1900, 8800, and 4870 to see if there's a combination that causes or corrects it.

Results as of today using Snow Leopard:

2007 MP w x1900
4 displays each 1024x768 : (3072x768) + (1024x768) dual out
4 displays each 1280x1024 : (3840x768) + (1280x1024) dual out
3 displays each 1024x768 : (3072x768) single out
3 displays each 1280x1024 : (3840x768) single out

2008 MP w 8800
6 displays each 800x600 : (2400x600) + (800x600) dual out
6 displays each 1024x768 : (3072x768) + (3072x768) dual out
4 displays each 1024x768 : (3072x768) + (1024x768) dual out
4 displays each 1280x1024 : (3840x768) + (1280x1024) dual out
3 displays each 1024x768 : (3072x768) single out
3 displays each 1280x1024 : (3840x768) single out

All passed with no side noise. I also researched several articles online regarding this same issue. There have been reports of this however all testing seems to point to issues existing in hardware other than the TH2G.

I won't have access to a 2009 MP with a 4870 unit mid October as they are all out on rental. If others can test this config before then it would be appreciated.

Please note that I use the SwitchRezX utility to establish my resolutions before attaching the TH2G boxes. Also note that the Dual TH2G configuration is not recommended.

[Technickal28]

Matrox tech support was equally as unhelpful for me, and gave me the same crap about the ATI drivers

Our issue came with driving two HD Projectors @1920x1080 at 60Hz on two outputs of a DH2G Digital Edition. One projector always comes up correctly and one comes up as digital snow. No matter what output the "snow" projector is plugged into, it comes up the same, and we know the projector works because we plugged it in directly to the computer's DVI output with success.

We're running a dual quad 2.26 with 8Gb of mem and an ATI 4870, crucial 128GB SSD. From the ATI card to a DH2g Digital Edition with a DVI to DSub 15pin connector, and two DVIs out to two projectors. The USB and 15pin Dsub are from the Matrox box. Everything has been tested individually to work, both DVI cables to projectors are good. There's a MiniDP to DVI adapter attached to the ATI Card so we have a reference monitor also, which is not the same resolution as the projectors. The reason I don't entirely believe the tech bulletin from Matrox regarding the ATI card not supporting Snow Leopard and resolutions higher than a single screen, is that I tested this system out with two monitors at 1280x1024 and it worked fine. (the projectors were not available).
In everyone's testing, nobody seems to have gone all the way up to 1080, and I'm suspicious that the DVI-VGA adapter (which Matrox says is fine and you can use any) is not allowing the dual link to happen btween the Matrox and MacPro.

Can anyone confirm from experience that they were able to drive two 1920x1080 outputs out of the Matrox DH2g?

and does anyone know what the digital snow means?