General help needed for dual monitor setup

O

OkNowWhat

New Member
Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion computer that has the video card built into the motherboard, I want to run dual monitors on the computer.

Can I using the existing video card setup and get another video card to run the second monitor, or do I need to get a dual monitor video card?

Or is there any other options for a dual monitor setup.

This computer is not for high speed graphics.

No gaming on this system.

Just need to know the best way to approach this situation or what you would recommend.

Thanks,

OkNowWhat
 

My Computer

System One

  • Memory
    2GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 5500 FX
    Hard Drives
    200GB
If the graphics card you have now has two video output ports on it, then you can just connect a 2nd monitor to it.

If it does't, then you could buy an old PCI card and put it in a spare PCI slot (if you have room) and use that for a second monitor, or another option would be to buy a graphics card with 2 video outputs.

I don't know if there's any benefits of using two seperate video cards to one video card though.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Built
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
    Motherboard
    XFX MB-750I-72P9 NF750i
    Memory
    4096MB Corsair XMS2 PC-5400
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS Nvidia Geforce GTX470
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xonar DX
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 24" S2409W & Dell 20" E207WFP
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 & 1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    750GB Western Digital Caviar Black & 500GB Samsung
    PSU
    750 watt Thermaltake Toughpower
    Case
    Coolermaster Dominator 690 Nvidia Edition
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9700-NT Cooler, 6x 120mm Chassis Fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech G11 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Logitech G5 Laser Mouse (2007 edition)
    Internet Speed
    100Mbps
    Other Info
    abit airpace 54mbps wireless PCI-E x1 card
Everlong18 said:
If the graphics card you have now has two video output ports on it, then you can just connect a 2nd monitor to it.

If it does't, then you could buy an old PCI card and put it in a spare PCI slot (if you have room) and use that for a second monitor, or another option would be to buy a graphics card with 2 video outputs.

I don't know if there's any benefits of using two seperate video cards to one video card though.
Click to expand...

Sorry too say but you can't do that in Vista; two different video cards (in this case onboard and a card) as Vista won't allow it,

All graphics adapters in a system must use the same display driver model. That is, all of them should either be running XPDM or WDDM. The driver models are mutually exclusive, and Windows Vista does not allow the simultaneous loading of both an XPDM driver and a WDDM driver.
If a system has one graphics adapter with a XPDM driver and another with a WDDM driver, then Windows Vista will choose the POST device, which is the one with VGA resources. This is commonly referred to as the "VGA adapter."

•If multiple graphics adapters are present in a system, all of them must use the same WDDM driver. If there are two graphics adapters with WDDM drivers from two different manufacturers, then Windows will disable one of them. The VGA adapter will be enabled, and the second device will be disabled.
Click to expand...

MultiMonitor Support and Windows Vista

so yes if his current onboard doesn't support dual monitor then he will need a card that does.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Me
    CPU
    Athlon x2 7750 BE
    Motherboard
    Asus M4A78 Pro
    Memory
    2x2gb Kingston
    Graphics Card(s)
    Sapphire HD 4830
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Xtreme Music
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer P221w and Acer 1916w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050 and 1440x900
    Hard Drives
    2x80 GB Seagate 7200.10 in RAID0, 500 GB Seagate 7200.12
    PSU
    Antec Earthwatts 500W
    Case
    Antec Sonata III
    Cooling
    AC Freezer 64 Pro and a couple of 120 mm case fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech G5 v2
    Internet Speed
    10000/1000
Ah yea, I missed the bit that said he had an onboard video card. Thought he had an actual graphics card, which is why I said buy a cheap PCI card.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Built
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
    Motherboard
    XFX MB-750I-72P9 NF750i
    Memory
    4096MB Corsair XMS2 PC-5400
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS Nvidia Geforce GTX470
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xonar DX
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 24" S2409W & Dell 20" E207WFP
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 & 1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    750GB Western Digital Caviar Black & 500GB Samsung
    PSU
    750 watt Thermaltake Toughpower
    Case
    Coolermaster Dominator 690 Nvidia Edition
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9700-NT Cooler, 6x 120mm Chassis Fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech G11 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Logitech G5 Laser Mouse (2007 edition)
    Internet Speed
    100Mbps
    Other Info
    abit airpace 54mbps wireless PCI-E x1 card
If you don't want to get a dual monitor video card and bother with opening up your computer, you can achieve a dual monitor setup using a DualHead2Go. It connects to a single VGA or DVI output on a laptop or desktop system, and allows you to hook up two monitors.
 

My Computer

System One

just to add something almost all video cards support dual monitors i can't think of one that doesn't (not saying there aren't any)
however some cards do it better than others it's worth doing alittle research into it as driver revisions in this case definetly make the difference.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    me
    CPU
    intel Q6600 @3.0Ghz
    Motherboard
    gigabyte EP35C DS3R
    Memory
    8 GB OCZ 1066 HPC REAPER
    Graphics Card(s)
    Sapphire 4870 HD 1024mb gddr5
    Monitor(s) Displays
    lg flatron 20.1
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    western digital 350gb
    samsung spinpoint 120gb
    PSU
    900w
    Case
    thermaltake aguila
    Cooling
    2x 120mm 2x 10cm
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