Home › Forums › Archives › Computer Support › Computer Support Discussion › Can I have two monitors on a desktop?
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March 14, 2010 at 9:27 pm #32119bluemartinMember
I brought a new LCD and want to use it as my monitor when I am watching movie or something. Can I have two monitors in one desktop computer?
March 16, 2010 at 7:12 pm #176787Jeff HesterKeymasterbluemartin, you can absolutely do this. I highly recommend it!
Most people I know who have worked with dual screens for any length of time become addicted to the extra screen real estate. It makes multitasking so much easier.
How do you connect to monitors to one PC?
There are a couple of techniques, and it will depend on the kind of video card you have. Many of the better video cards are “dual head” cards with connections for two monitors. You simply check the connections on the back of your PC and see if you’ve got two connections. Then in Windows, you can configure your video properties to assign the primary and secondary monitor, which side which is on, and and even choose different resolutions for each monitor (LCDs are optimized for ONE resolution, which varies by model).
If you don’t have a dual-head graphic card, you may be able to add a second video card. This can be a little trickier. I’ve done this by using two of the same brand video card (i.e. nVidia).
Do you know what video card you’ve currently got? Tell us the brand and model, and we can help you figure out what kind of configuration it will support.
March 21, 2010 at 9:19 pm #176790bluemartinMemberThanks for such a detailed answer. I tried to see what video card I have from my device manager but could not find any entry for that. There is one called display adapter. Is it the same thing?
March 21, 2010 at 9:54 pm #176786Jeff HesterKeymaster@bluemartin 247088 wrote:
Thanks for such a detailed answer. I tried to see what video card I have from my device manager but could not find any entry for that. There is one called display adapter. Is it the same thing?
Yes, that’s it. What OS are you running? What kind of computer do you have (make/model)?
March 22, 2010 at 1:31 am #176788MrEggsaladParticipantGenerally it doesn’t seem to matter much (at least in my experience) on the video card make per se in if two monitors will work or not. If you have the ports then you should be able to just hook up and enjoy, maybe with a little configuration such as setting the default monitor and resolution if it isn’t automatic, but other than that it actually isn’t too bad.
March 24, 2010 at 12:59 am #176789Joe BallMemberMrEggsalad;247093 wrote:Generally it doesn’t seem to matter much (at least in my experience) on the video card make per se in if two monitors will work or not. If you have the ports then you should be able to just hook up and enjoy, maybe with a little configuration such as setting the default monitor and resolution if it isn’t automatic, but other than that it actually isn’t too bad.Yeah, I think Jeff was thinking back to the “old days” of Windows 3.1. Back then, the OS didn’t support multiple monitors out of the box. XP and later do just fine, as does the Mac OS X.
Dual screens ROCK!
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