Dual Monitor Issue

[100Coogn]

When booting my PC, the BIOS (boot) screen appears on the secondary monitor and the primary monitor displays 'no signal'
Once the Windows splash screen appears, it shows up correctly on the primary display. 
Shouldn't the BIOS appear on the primary screen too? 

OS.........Windows 7 64 Bit
GPU........GTX 660 (non-TI)
MOBO.....Asus M3A76-CM
CPU........AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core

1. I have the primary monitor connected to the correct DVI port, per EVGA instructions.
2. Tried swapping the DVI cables. (same problem)
3. Googled this issue with no luck.

Thanks for any advice...

Coogan

[Bizman]

This is just an educated guess, but: There's two entirely different mechanisms affecting your two screen system. The first to apply is BIOS which has hard coded instructions about what to do after you've pushed the start button. You might find some graphics related options in the BIOS settings, possibly even allowing you to choose between DVI and HDMI as a primary boot time video port. The order of the two DVI ports for your monitors is set in the firmware (equivalent of BIOS in other devices than motherboards) of the GTX660. In Windows the basic hardware settings get substituted by more sophisticated driver based systems, which allow you to choose your primary monitor among other things.

You said you have swapped the DVI cables, but did you change the primary monitor also in Windows after that? Or does the boot screen always appear on the same monitor independent of the port it's connected to?

[100Coogn]

This is just an educated guess, but: There's two entirely different mechanisms affecting your two screen system. The first to apply is BIOS which has hard coded instructions about what to do after you've pushed the start button. You might find some graphics related options in the BIOS settings, possibly even allowing you to choose between DVI and HDMI as a primary boot time video port. The order of the two DVI ports for your monitors is set in the firmware (equivalent of BIOS in other devices than motherboards) of the GTX660. In Windows the basic hardware settings get substituted by more sophisticated driver based systems, which allow you to choose your primary monitor among other things.

You said you have swapped the DVI cables, but did you change the primary monitor also in Windows after that? Or does the boot screen always appear on the same monitor independent of the port it's connected to?

I used the Nvidia Control Panel settings to select the primary monitor, before and after switching the DVI connectors.
My secondary monitor is an old CRT screen, so I had to use a VGA adapter.  Don't know if that may be causing a problem.

Coogan

[Bizman]

It might be that the computer starts looking for monitors first analogically (CRT). In any case there's nothing to worry about. As you said, after the Windows splash screen the monitors get placed correctly, simply indicating that the nVidia drivers and control panel take over the monitor settings. Changing the order of monitors is not more harmful than the resolution change from VGA to whatever your extended desktop uses.

[The Fugitive]

Nope, it's not the analog first thing. I have both my 39 tv and 21 inch LCD monitor hooked up to DVI and I have the same issue. I always thought it might be something in the BIOs, but it doesn't bother me enough to chase down.

I have another thing that does bother me but I don't have time to chase it down. If I shut down my computer, when I go to turn it on I need to unplug one of my USB hubs before I start it. It seems that the computer doesn't shut down completely with the hub plugged in. However if I use the "start/ restart" buttons on windows it shuts down and restarts with out an issue. 

I know windows is "shutting down" something to clear it but like I said I just don't have the time to chase it down.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

When booting my PC, the BIOS (boot) screen appears on the secondary monitor and the primary monitor displays 'no signal'
Once the Windows splash screen appears, it shows up correctly on the primary display. 
Shouldn't the BIOS appear on the primary screen too? 

OS.........Windows 7 64 Bit
GPU........GTX 660 (non-TI)
MOBO.....Asus M3A76-CM
CPU........AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core

1. I have the primary monitor connected to the correct DVI port, per EVGA instructions.
2. Tried swapping the DVI cables. (same problem)
3. Googled this issue with no luck.

Thanks for any advice...

Coogan

If yours is a BIOS (basic input output system) then as its name suggests it's a very basic system. The bios does not have multimonitor support so it probably just picks the first screen to respond or the first DVI port id on boot. This is nothing to worry about.

[100Coogn]

Ok, thanks guys.
Since it's not just a problem with me only, I'll leave it as it is.  It really doesn't bother me enough to mess with it anymore.

Fugi, I have the same thing happen when I leave my thumb-drive plugged into a USB port.  The computer will not boot. 

Coogan

[Bizman]

Fugi, I have the same thing happen when I leave my thumb-drive plugged into a USB port.  The computer will not boot. 

Coogan

Sounds different... Coogan, I think in your case an USB drive is higher in the boot device order than the HDD. Easy to change. Fugi has a problem with the USB hub which leads more to a power issue, a shortcut of some kind perhaps.

[100Coogn]

Sounds different... Coogan, I think in your case an USB drive is higher in the boot device order than the HDD. Easy to change. Fugi has a problem with the USB hub which leads more to a power issue, a shortcut of some kind perhaps.

Never thought about that.  I'll take a look in the BIOS and see what the boot priorities are.

Coogan