MST Hub Issues? Display out of Range?

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
38,744
Hey all,

I'm currently messing around with my first ever MST hub, and I'm having some issues.

I'm building my fiance a new system. She used to use a 27" iMac. At some point I pulled up some older Dell monitors for her to use as side monitors and she really liked the setup.

ana-speaker-pixelize.jpg


Well, her iMac recently died, and it turns out she wasn't sold on Macs and OSX so I decided to build her a replacement.

So I settled on a Ryzen 5 2400G APU running on Linux Mint. Only problem was I couldn't find any motherboards with more than two display outputs. No problem, it has Displayport 1.2 and I've heard all about these MST hubs, I'll just use one of those.

So, I ordered a Startech 2 port MST hub. The planned setup is as follows:

HDMI -> Main Monitor
DP -> MST Hub -> DP to DVI adapter -> 2x Old Dell Side Screens

When I plug everything in, the monitors are recognized by the OS, but no matter what settings I use they always come up as "Signal out of Range" and refuse to display anything.

To eliminate these two old Dell monitors as the problem, I tried with a slightly less old 22" HP monitor. It had the same "Out of Range" issue, but still displayed an image, albeit with a pink bar down the left side of the screen.

To eliminate Linux or the 2400G APU as the issue, I plugged the MST hub into my Pascal Titan on my Desktop, with my two side monitors. (Different models, but still Dell, and old enough that they are DVI and VGA only.) Same result. OS (Windows 10 or Linux, doesn't matter) detects the screens and lets me configure them, but no matter what I set them to, I get a "signal out of range" error.

Startech's very light manual claims they work with any monitor, and even specifically claims compatibility with DP to DVI adapters, but has no troubleshooting section.

Has anyone else experienced any issues like this? Or, has anyone had success with MST hubs? Maybe Startech's MST hubs aren't very good and I should try a better brand?

Id' appreciate any nuggets of information anyone might have.
 
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I'm using the Club3d MST 1.2 triple hub myself, connected to a RX480. No issues at all other than occasionally it doesn't start up correctly and I have to hit the reset button on it.

I am plugging in only DP monitors into my MST hub right now, but I have had in the past plugged in both single-link and dual-link DP->DVI adapters into the hub and they worked fine.

Are you absolutely sure they shipped you the MST 1.2 hub? There is an older Startech MST 1.1 hub which treats both monitors as a single large monitor. You are seeing the monitors as separate in Windows and not a single large surface, correct?

If you have a DP monitor somewhere you may want to try it - I know I had success with DP->DVI adapters but I'm using a different manufacturer's hub so it may be Startech's implementation that is off.
 
I use a 2-port hub from Monoprice and I occasionally get that error on one of the monitors (usually the primary) when waking from sleep. Disconnecting and reconnecting the power plug fixes it. Both monitors are connected directly with DisplayPort cables (no adapters in between).
 
I could never get that hub to work properly. It was indeed a 1.2 hub.

I wound up returning it, and installing a wimpy cheap old low power secondary GPU (GT630) instead, to get extra monitor outputs.

it's a less clean solution, which bums me out a little, but at least it works.

IMG_20180908_184256.jpg
 
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