The Doctor answers your questions about second monitors, USB testing, Blu-ray codecs, PCI issues, and display crashes
Multiple Displays
I like to keep websites open or watch a movie on my secondary monitor while gaming. Would using a USB-attached device like an HP DisplayPort for the second display give me much of a performance increase, while having the videocard drive one monitor? Or could the USB setup even be detrimental? —Christopher Kashuba
The Doctor Responds: Almost certainly, you’re best-off driving both monitors from your graphics card. But the definitive answer isn’t as simple. The Doc believes you’re talking about using DisplayLink technology to attach a second display (HP sells a DisplayLink-equipped screen called the U160 with a native resolution of 1366x768). This involves compressing screen updates and sending them off over USB. Certain apps are well-suited to this, others aren’t. A website won’t change much over time, so it won’t require much host processing or peripheral bandwidth. Movie playback, however, will be laggy, full of artifacts, and much more resource-intensive—not a good fit for DisplayLink.
Even if you have to play your game in Windowed (Fullscreen) mode so you can drag your mouse to the other monitor without “tabbing out,” which could sacrifice performance, connecting a second monitor to your graphics card would be the Doc’s tip. We’d only consider a USB-attached display as a productivity tool for word processing or email on the go.
Testing Times
I’ve obtained some used SATA hard drives. I’d like to run a thorough test on each one to help me judge whether to put them back into use. I’m wondering which utility software (free or for purchase) you’d recommend I could put on a bootable CD or USB flash drive to test them? Thanks for your great magazine. —Brandon Coale
The Doctor Responds: You’re right to be wary of putting used mechanical disks back into action. Fortunately, this is one of those cases when free software should address your needs. Without knowing which company manufactured the drives, the Doc suggests you visit the vendor-in-question’s support site and download whatever tools you can find for proactively identifying damaged disks.
Seagate, for instance, offers its SeaTools for Windows utility, supporting the company’s internal and external storage products (the app is compatible with Maxtor and Samsung drives as well). It’ll attempt to fix any bad sectors it encounters, prompt you when a firmware update is found, write zeros across a drive to erase it, or let you restore the password on an FDE-capable disk. Western Digital’s equivalent is called WinDLG (for Data Lifeguard), while Toshiba publishes a Windows Diagnostic Tool for Fujitsu-branded hard drives, too.
There’s also a handful of useful third-party utilities. HDDScan, for example, performs a number of different tests, presents S.M.A.R.T attributes, provides access to power management settings, and monitors temperature information. The free version of HD Tune includes some of the same functionality, but adds a low-level benchmark for gauging the performance of your hard drive. Plenty of other options exist. But between the manufacturer-supplied tools and the best freeware utilities, you should get a good sense of drive health.
The Blu-ray Blues
Dear Doc, I need some serious help. I cannot play any type of Blu-rays through VLC, Roxio CinePlayer, or anything. I have searched the Internet, forums, and everything known to man. You should have been my first to contact. VLC keeps saying this: “Blu-ray error: This Blu-ray Disc needs a library for AACS decoding, and your system does not have it. Your input can’t be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘bluray://D:/’. Check the log for details.” Can you please help me? –John
The Doctor Responds: Roxio’s CinePlayer software is designed for DVD playback (pre-Blu-ray) under Windows Vista or XP. VLC, the Doc’s own favorite freely available media player, does come with the libdvdcss library for reading CSS-encrypted DVDs, but doesn’t natively include the keys for decrypting the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). At least by default, neither of those media players are going to work. The same goes for Windows Media Player.
Now, we’re all enthusiasts here, so the Doc won’t pretend the two files needed to get VLC working with most Blu-ray discs aren’t all over the Internet. In fact, you’ll find instructions at the top of VLC’s own forum for Windows. But circumventing AACS this way isn’t legal. And newer movies employ updated protection mechanisms that frequently thwart workarounds.
Your best bet is finding Blu-ray playback software you’d be comfortable paying for. CyberLink’s PowerDVD and Corel’s WinDVD are two Windows-based options. Regular updates ensure you can play the latest releases and get support for next-gen formats like HEVC. Alternatively, you could buy SlySoft’s AnyDVD HD, which defeats AACS, allowing players to read decrypted audio and video formats. The software’s legality is unclear, but it remains available for $73. Regular updates, published through a subscription system, keep AnyDVD current with the latest protections schemes.
The Doc isn’t trying to hawk software here. Sometimes freeware gets the job done. But part of being a power user is recognizing when a purpose-built solution is the way to go. There’s no shame in dropping $50 on good decoder software.
A good Blu-ray decoder like PowerDVD avoids legally-questionable workarounds.
PCI Problems
I have an Intel DH61CR motherboard (with current BIOS revision), a Core i3-2100 CPU, and 4GB of RAM. The CPU has on-die graphics, but I decided to install an EVGA GeForce GTS 450 videocard. The motherboard BIOS did not recognize it, though. I finally found an Intel document on the company’s download site stating this: “PCI cards that utilize a PCI Express to PCI bridge component may not work with Intel Desktop Boards based on the Intel 6 Series Chipset.” My problem is how I purchase a videocard and know if it will work as most places don’t allow returns after they’ve been used. Can you help? I’m interested in the GeForce GT 730 or similar, but not sure it will work? –JB
The Doctor Responds: As far as the Doc’s seen, there’s no PCI Express to PCI bridge chip on the GeForce GTS 450—your graphics card should sport a GF106 GPU, with native support for PCIe 2.0. Moreover, Intel’s manual is pretty specific that the board’s BIOS automatically detects and configures add-in cards. You don’t need to mess with firmware settings to get your card working. Good news, right? So, what else could be wrong? Time to troubleshoot!
You’ll have to excuse the Doc if some of this sounds obvious. Diagnosing a problem is all about eliminating possibilities. Start with the power. EVGA’s GeForce GTS 450 lineup has a 400W minimum power supply requirement, with at least 22A of current on the +12V rail. Check your PSU’s specs to compare. Does your model (EVGA lists nine versions on its site) have a six-pin power connector? If so, that needs to be connected. Make sure the card is seated properly, too. Confirm the GeForce’s fan spins up when you apply power.
How about your monitor configuration? You plugged your display into the add-in card, rather than the mobo’s integrated output, right? And if you switched from, say, VGAout to DVI, or DVI to mini-HDMI, did you ensure the monitor is set to the right input?
There’s always the chance your card is dead or your mobo’s slot is damaged. Don’t let that dissuade you from trying again, though. Standards like PCI Express exist to facilitate compatibility between host and client devices. In short, there’s no technical reason why your motherboard and graphics card, both PCIe-compatible, shouldn’t work together.
Intel’s DH61CR mobo sports a 16-lane second-gen PCIe slot, which should have no problem supporting Nvidia’s GeForce GTS 450 GPU.
Graphics Woes
Hi MaxPC! I love the magazine! Thanks to you, I’ve built a heck of a gaming PC! But… I have an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with Windows 7 64-bit and a Radeon HD 6770M videocard. All updates and drivers are up to date. It works great except that Microsoft Access frequently crashes the display driver. The screen goes black, blinks, and then resets with a dialog box telling me the display driver has crashed and recovered. I can leave Access open, unattended, without an issue. But just typing text into a field can set it off. Typing s-l-o-w-l-y doesn’t cause a crash. Any idea how to fix this very annoying problem? Thanks! –Ken Sexton
The Doctor Responds: There are multiple possible culprits when a display driver stops responding. AMD does a great job of explaining what’s happening on its support site: “The issue occurs when the Timeout Detection and Recovery feature available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 detects the graphics card has not responded within a predetermined period of time and reinitializes it with the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) to prevent the need to reboot.”
Because your issue is specific to Access, that application might be responsible. Is it fully patched? If so, have you tried removing and adding it back? DirectX is a possible suspect as well; try reinstalling the latest version. You mentioned the drivers are up to date, but what about your BIOS? How about Windows?
Depending on how many times you’ve updated your Radeon drivers, and how thoroughly AMD’s uninstall routine cleaned your system along the way, you could have older corrupted files interfering with the latest and greatest. The Doc has crushed a number of display bugs on well-used systems by running a utility called Display Driver Uninstaller. You’ll have to run it at your own risk, and then update to the latest supported drivers from HP.
Once you work your way through symptoms related to software, it’s time to consider hardware-based explanations. Have you ever cleaned out your notebook’s air vents? Check the graphics processor’s temperature using GPU-Z and the CPU with Core Temp. If they’re too hot, it may be time to expose the dv7’s innards.
Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario is that your graphics module, one of the SO-DIMMs, or some other component, is simply at the end of its life, in which case it could be time to start shopping for a new laptop.
Submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com
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