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Friday, March 25, 2011

Problems with Diamond DisplayLink BVU160

I run a multi-monitor setup and love the extra real estate.  Unfortunately, due to an error in ordering my PC I ended up with a slim chasis and can’t find a dual-head card that fits. I resorted to using the Diamond USB adapter, which for the most part has been a nice way to get that third monitor running.

But lately this little guy has been causing me headaches.

WP_000186

Here’s the formula:

  • Windows 7 Ultimate x64
  • Diamond BVU160 v1.0 DisplayLink adapter, driver is up to date
  • Windows Phone 7 attached (Samsung Focus)
  • Dell E198FP monitor
  • ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series display drivers, up to date

The screen “freezes” up and does one of two things:

  1. The image is locked in a sense, and only redraws small invalidated regions as I drag my mouse across the monitor.  I can also restore a window, invalidating the whole screen, and get the whole thing to redraw.  This works a few times, but then the screen goes black.
  2. It skips #1 (or I just don’t notice as I’m working on a different monitor) and just goes black.

At this point I have to unplug the power of the monitor (power cycling doesn’t do anything, I have to physically remove the AC cable), disconnect the Diamond adapter, reconnect power and then attach the USB adapter again.

This is happening about 2-3 times a day when I have the phone connected and the display adapter is almost hot to the touch when it gets to this state.

I have a fairly high level of certainty that this is related to a conflict with Diamond’s adapter and Windows Phone.  It only ever freezes like this with the WP7 device attached.  I thought it was perhaps Folding@Home, but I uninstalled that and I’m still getting this problem.

If anyone else is running into this and has a workaround, please let me know!

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