Smart 6065 mirrored display not working properly

[mdench]

We have recently purchased one of the new Smart 6065 which only has HDMI input. We run out classroom pcs normally with a tower connected to a screen and projector via a USB powered VGA splitter which works fine. We bout a VGA to HDMI converter assuming that this would work, which it does sort of...

 

So we have the desktop connected via the VGA splitter with the desktop screen attached, we then have this VGA -> HDMI adapater connected to the splitter to connect the screen.

 

If the pc is already started and you connect the adapter to the splitter the smart screen mirrors the input at the same resolution as the screen and works fine.

 

If you then reboot the PC it only displays on the smart screen as windows has detected a VGA to HDMI adapter connected through the splitter and then outputs at 1080p which is above what the desktop monitor can display. If you drop the resolution down to say 800 x 600 the desktop monitor still won't display anything.

 

So my question do you see anything wrong with the way we have it setup / how do you guys connect up your Smart Screens via HDMI if you have them?

[mdench]

anyone?

[TechSupp]

Interested in this as we are looking to get some 6065's in and we have teacher desk screens as well. Possible to get a separate graphics card with HDMI and VGA output then you could possibly run both? No having one to test, not sure if you could run the two at separate resolutions?

[midweek]

We have a couple of 6065's. I had to put a low-profile graphics card with HDMI and VGA into our desktop PCs, which wasn't expensive.

 

Just to warn you though the 6065's don't have a freeze image button so you tend to get the teachers flipping between mirrored and extended displays which has a tendency to mess with the resolution and subsequently they have to re-orient all the time. This is because the monitor resolution isn't matched to the 6065 but who's going to buy a 4K monitor! Having 1080p on both screens seems to create black borders on the 6065.

 

I'm still testing this but so far the teachers have said the upgrade to a 6065 from a traditional IWB isn't worth the money.

[mdench]

We have a couple of 6065's. I had to put a low-profile graphics card with HDMI and VGA into our desktop PCs, which wasn't expensive.

 

Just to warn you though the 6065's don't have a freeze image button so you tend to get the teachers flipping between mirrored and extended displays which has a tendency to mess with the resolution and subsequently they have to re-orient all the time. This is because the monitor resolution isn't matched to the 6065 but who's going to buy a 4K monitor! Having 1080p on both screens seems to create black borders on the 6065.

 

I'm still testing this but so far the teachers have said the upgrade to a 6065 from a traditional IWB isn't worth the money.

 

Thanks for this I was hoping to get away with not having to get additional GFX cards. I noticed the freeze image thing the other day when I had play with it.... most annoying!. Our staff seem to like them as we've had 3 of the E70 models before hand which are great with their multiple inputs for HDMI, VGA etc so connectivity wasn't an issue and it did come with a remote with the freeze function! Just a shame they discontinued it for the 6065

[midweek]

Yeah. Spoke to them at BETT and they said they had no plans to have a freeze function in future models either.

[TechSupp]

Ours I think will be glad of the 6065's as they are in need of new projectors anyway and always complaing they cant model writing on the Smartboards they have, no freeze is annoying but they will just have ti live with that, swings anx roundabouts and all that.

[Wilderbeest]

We've had problems with the 6065's we have installed. There is a firmware issue which makes them pretty much unreliable/unusable - Smart has NO IDEA when this will be fixed. The 4K feature is more of a problem than a help. Nothing has 4K capability as standard, so you will have to add in some extra hardware to make it work. £45 PCIe cards work well. Then the 6065 image will be beautiful, but is an extended desktop - unless you have a 4K monitor on the teacher station, allowing you to mirror. You will need to get some software to add the command bar to the 6065. (Something like display fusion). After all of this, the icons are too small to be usable. You can scale up text and icons, but it's system wide, not display specific and applications such as Sims do not like scaled text. So, we have ended up a) using them as expensive TVs until the firmware fix finally materialises b) using them at lower than 4K if we are brave enough to attempt an interactive lesson. We will probably not be getting any more 6065 units. Nice idea - they just don't deliver the exciting Bett promise.

[Sagima]

We've had problems with the 6065's we have installed. There is a firmware issue which makes them pretty much unreliable/unusable - Smart has NO IDEA when this will be fixed. The 4K feature is more of a problem than a help. Nothing has 4K capability as standard, so you will have to add in some extra hardware to make it work. £45 PCIe cards work well. Then the 6065 image will be beautiful, but is an extended desktop - unless you have a 4K monitor on the teacher station, allowing you to mirror. You will need to get some software to add the command bar to the 6065. (Something like display fusion). After all of this, the icons are too small to be usable. You can scale up text and icons, but it's system wide, not display specific and applications such as Sims do not like scaled text. So, we have ended up a) using them as expensive TVs until the firmware fix finally materialises b) using them at lower than 4K if we are brave enough to attempt an interactive lesson. We will probably not be getting any more 6065 units. Nice idea - they just don't deliver the exciting Bett promise.

 

Not had any problems with them but I've not updated their firmwares either. 4 of our five work on the built in hdmi connection of the optiplex390 it's attached to. The fiifth w were trying to run at 4k but although the 6065 doesn't seem to be an issue the grpahics card, monitor and cable I ordered are all faulty so it will have to be sorted out over easter

[Wilderbeest]

That's good to hear. I guess the other thing that is worth mentioning - longer HDMI cables are always a problem with HD. With 4K it's potentially even more so. Also, as the 6065 only has one HDMI input, other devices such as visualisers need to support HDMI pass-through and at the 4K resolution. Choose and test graphics cards carefully - we found that some units (e.g. the USB3 adapters from Star.tech worked, but audio was terrible, regardless of the resolution. On other HDMI monitors, the audio was fine.) Make sure HDMI cables/splitters/connection components are suitable. The price of the cables doesn't seem to correlate with 4K success! We have used this graphics card successfully at 4K - MSI AMD R7 240 730MHz 1600MHz 2GB 128-bit DDR3 DVI HDMI VGA LOW PROFILE FAN PCI-E GRAPHICS CARD.

[TechSupp]

Hmmm, not news I was wanting to hear as we are currently having 4 installed to replace existing smartboards and due to have another 8 installed in our new build! We based our decision on fact that we trialed an E70 and teachers loved it and from what we saw at BETT etc. Fingers crossed!

[mdench]

Hmmm, not news I was wanting to hear as we are currently having 4 installed to replace existing smartboards and due to have another 8 installed in our new build! We based our decision on fact that we trialed an E70 and teachers loved it and from what we saw at BETT etc. Fingers crossed!

 

We ended up buying some of the last e70s floating around due the issues we were having with 6065.

[TechSupp]

Are these issues only when you run it at the 4K high resolution as there is no way we will be running them that high, the e70 is run alot lower.

[Sagima]

Just to update the thread really.

I have now had a problem mirroring the 6065. I couldn't get it to work properly with an amd graphics card - the drivers wouldn't install with the smart software and the windows driver wouldn't fill the 6065 although it did fill the mirrored 1080p monitor. Using either the built-in (intel) or a nvidia card showed no issues at all.

Tried different length cables and it made no difference.

[TechSupp]

Maybe just to help, had ours installed today by the very nice VeryPC boys and had same issue of not filling screen, changed resolution or mode i.e extened etc and it filled screen till reboot. Sorted it by disabling the AMD display control app (cant remember the exact card at the moment) at start up, works fine now mirrored. Not bothered at moment about extened desktop, mirrored will be just fine. Good so far and using v11 Smart notebook.

[TechSupp]

Found it, we got some Radeon 5450 cards from ICT Direct, multi output, hdmi, vga etc and they went on just fine.