My recently purchased DP2DVID2 converter is not working properly.
My monitor is a Dell U3011, which have always worked fine with DVI-D cables at native resolution 2560x1600. My computer has a 5070Ti and only display ports. The DP to DVI converter is connected to the graphics card and into a USB port for power.
Somehow Windows icons and text look very blocky. Upon startup, the boot/BIOS menu graphics look smooth, but as soon as Windows starts, the resolution is very low. This is especially noticeable in text and icons. Background graphics look smoother. The computer recognizes the monitor correctly, and also recognizes its native resolution and refresh rate. When I remote into the computer, the monitor shows 2560x1600 resolution perfectly fine.
Any idea why a direct connection through the DP-DVI converter does not work properly?
Thank you for taking the time to ask your question here on the StarTech.com community page.
The first thing that stands out is that the boot/BIOS output looks good. We know the converter is working. However once the full drivers are loaded, with Windows, the video artifacts like the blocky text and icons occur. This is confirmed by how the computer recognizes the monitor and when you are accessing the system with a remote session. So the issue happens somewhere between when the video is sent to the graphics card and the display output on the monitor.
The exact cause would take some consideration and testing.
The DP2DVID2 itself may be a factor. If you happened to have a second DP2DVID2 unit, consider testing that. There could be something strange happening with the EDID from the monitor as well as the graphics drivers.
The specifications for the Dell U3011 indicated it has a native DisplayPort connection. If that is present, it may be best test directly with DisplayPort rather than converting through the DP2DVID2. Would that be possible to test? This could help quickly isolate the DP-to-DVI conversion and may yield some clues.
Could you also confirm that the DVI cable used between the DP2DVID2 and the monitor is in fact a Dual Link DVI-D cable? This should be a DVI-D cable with 25 pins on each end like our Product ID: DVIDDMM6, for reference.
If you do need to continue using the Dell monitor with the dual link DVI-D instead of DisplayPort you may want to review any settings from the GPU drivers :
check the NVIDIA Control Panel for scaling features and trying disabling those.
Verify the resolution and refresh rates in the NVIDIA Control Panel or in the Windows Advanced display settings, and try different settings manually instead of using the EDID defaults.
Please let us know if these suggestions are helpful in isolating why the DP-DVI conversion is not working correctly for you. We will be happy to investigate further once you have some results too.
After your suggestions, I did some testing. Connecting the monitor with a DP cable directly works fine. I just can’t to do that on a regular basis as the monitor’s DP port is already in use.
Next, I replaced the DVI-D cable between the DP2DVID2 and the monitor, and it turns out that resolved the issue. The DVI-D cable I initially used was ~15yrs ago, but has always worked fine at the 2560x1600 resolution with various desktops and laptops. However, with the new GPU something must not have been compatible anymore with this old cable. The cable I replaced it with is not new, but at ~10yrs old it’s apparently updated enough to be sending the signal through correctly.