Question : 3 monitors on i5-650 on Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H

Hi Experts,

I would like to attach 3 monitors to my GA-H55M-UD2H mainboard with an Intel i5-650 CPU, using DVI or HDMI. The mainboard has one DVI, one HDMI and one DisplayPort (which I wanted to use with a DP->HDMI adapter and a HDMI->DVI cable, as my monitors don't have DP). I got two displays working using HDMI and DVI. Unfortunately, I don't get any picture on the monitor with my DP -> HDMI -> DVI setup (using the AVA 121 adapter), even if it's the only monitor on the system. I have briefly contacted Gigabyte support and they told me that more than two monitors might not be supported anyway, depending on the CPU, but they weren't sure.

1. Is it generally possible to connect 3 monitors to a mainboard with an i5 650, i.e. does the integrated GPU support this setup?
2. If not, will replacing the CPU with another (which?) help?
3. If I do need a separate PCI-Express graphic card for my 3rd monitor, which one world work? I don't need anything fancy, just plain office work, and would prefer a passive card without a fan. (I have tested a GF8400GS based card and that did not want to work together with the mainboard's output - only when I deactived the mainboard's output, but then I can only connect two monitors to the card.)

Thanks a lot for your advice,
Thomas

Answer : 3 monitors on i5-650 on Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H

Hi

You should not be able to get 3 displays working from the mobo/ cpu and gpu chip.  I think they put 3 on the board so you have more connectivity options.

I would buy an seperate graphics card, as you are not gaming i would go for a cheap one like so.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/ATI+5400+Series/Sapphire+ATI+Radeon+HD+5450+512MB+GDDR3+Low+Profile+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=39486
The new ati cards support eyefinity that will allow you to have 3 displays working off one graphics card and they are fully customisable per screen aswell.

This would be the cheapest and easiest option as if you put a standard graphics card in it probably will disable the onboard/cpu graphics chip so you would not be able to get a 3rd screen working from the mobo, this way the graphics card will do all 3 screens with no issues.