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I have an AMD Radeon HD video card. Not sure if it is 6750 or 6950.

It has two ports on it: one is VGA and one is DVI.

Currently I am running 1 monitor out of the VGA input.

I want to run the same monitor out of the other input and I bought a DVI to VGA adapter but the second monitor is not registering. It powers on fine, but the computer does not recognize that it is connected. I've tried to do a little research and have found people that suggest a "converter" to convert the signal coming out of the DVI port to a VGA signal and that will make it work. Others have suggested buying a DVI monitor instead.

Are these correct options? My only options? I'm a little lost as to how to get this to work.

So I checked. I have a AMD Radeon HD 6670 card. I think the second port is actually a displayport and not DVI. Seeing as I don't know what this is I don't think my DVI to VGA adapter works in that port. It fits though. This is what the back of my card looks like: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385800,00.asp

Second edit...it's not a displayport it's an hdmi port.

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Are you sure that the video card supports dual monitors? Even though it may have two connections, it may only support one monitor. – Linger Feb 6 at 19:27
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Can you add which card you are using? Iinclude the brand and the precise model. If it is the reference AMD card then they should have at least four ports on it. Also, connecting the same monitor to the other port? Or a second identical monitor? If you have two monitors, which inputs do they accept? (VGA input is truly old and usually only found on very old monitors or on budget monitors). – Hennes Feb 6 at 19:29

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Your graphics card should support being able to drive both a VGA and a DVI monitor at the same time.

ATI have a (slightly rubbish) guide on the basic steps to get it to work with the two monitors ATI Multimonitor Guide. Basically the show you how to run their setup wizard.

In the ATI Catalyst Control Centre you should see something similar to this, though I've no idea how old this image is what you are looking for should have a similar name:

enter image description here

Basically if your second monitor is being detected then you can enable it.

If on the other hand the monitor is not able to be detected you may need to check your connectors and cables to make sure they are all well seated. Possibly try booting the machine with only the VGA monitor connected to see if it works at all.

-=EDIT=-

Having re-read your question I think I understand your problem a little better. You are using the VGA output on your graphics card, and using the analogue output from the DVI port via a DVI-VGA adapter.

I'm still a little surprised that this did not work but it is entirely possible that the graphics card only has one set of hardware for converting the digital video signal to analogue VGA and so will only work with one VGA monitor at a time. This would mean you can use either the VGA or the DVI-VGA but not both.

I have a graphics card here that has two DVI ports, but only one of them will accept a DVI-VGA converter, the holes for VGA are missing so the connector cannot be plugged in so I guess this card would have the same problem you are experiencing, only one analogue monitor output.

Another thing to check though is if your graphics card has a DisplayPort output. If so you can get adapters to convert that to a VGA output. I have just recently had reason to buy a Displayport to VGA adapter which worked a charm for driving an old VGA monitor and it was cheap at £5 all in.

It seems that digital DVI to VGA converters are expensive (£100+) while digital Displayport to VGA converters are much cheaper at <£20.

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I'll have to verify everything when I get home tomorrow. I don't know the exact model numbers of my card. The monitors may actually be 24" samsungs from costco that are tv's but have a vga input. – Marc Feb 6 at 19:56
The AMD site will say it works because it works for their card. (The ones with the shroud and 4 or 5 display plugs). However other manufacturers use AMDs chip to make their own cards and they can be quite different. Just try a google images on 7950 and see much some of the models differ from each other. Also, you can edit your original post to add more information (delete this post later, after you got home and added the info to the OP). – Hennes Feb 6 at 20:07
The problem is he has two monitors that only have vga connectors, and so needs to get the dvi port to pretend it's a vga port, and cable that will match that. – Joel Coehoorn Feb 6 at 20:26
Ah, I missed that, he has 1 x VGA port and is using another DVI->VGA adapter for the other monitor. Hmmm, that's a curious one. – Mokubai Feb 6 at 21:24
If it's a DVI-D port, it won't work with a DVI-to-VGA adapter since there's no analog signal to adapt. – David Schwartz Feb 6 at 23:08
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