Multiple monitors, whats the best way to connect?

[woody04]

I have a laptop with an extra monitor hooked up via a vga port and wish to hook up a second monitor and extend my desktop over the two monitors and my laptop (not duplicate). The problem is I only have one vga port.

 

I have looked online and seen the usb to vga adapters and the cheapest one I could find which looked like it does what I need was around £30.

 

Just wondering if anybody knows a cheaper way of doing this?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

[Ignatius]

Will it really extend the desktop across two or more monitors? I though that facility was available only if the graphics card was connected directly to AGP/PCI etc., rather than via USB. If it will work to extend the laptop desktop, I'll be interested in doing it too.

[buzzard]

if your laptop will plug into a usb port replicator it shoudl work, I've a guy at work who does the same, dosn't use the laptop screen (broken) but hooks upto two monitors (VGA and DVI)

[woody04]

Will it really extend the desktop across two or more monitors? I though that facility was available only if the graphics card was connected directly to AGP/PCI etc., rather than via USB. If it will work to extend the laptop desktop, I'll be interested in doing it too.

 

I hadnt really thought about a graphics card I guessed it would just work if I connected it via a different port, however, I may well be wrong...

[SYNACK]

Possibly the best way to do this is (if your laptop supports it) a docking station/port replicator. The older hp ones are really cheap (even in NZ) and give you both a VGA and DVI out. As long as the onboard video card has the horsepower to support both outputs it should work fine and allow for full GPU speed/smooth video playback etc.

[robk]

The USB video cards do work, I wouldnt want to play lots of video games over them, but if your looking at more display space for web browsers etc not a problem.

[imiddleton25]

I tried to do the exact same thing and found the limit of the laptop graphics card ( 2 monitors) still applies even if you get usb to vga adapter. Best i could get was laptop screen on and the half a screen on both external monitors but they were clones not extended i used a maxtrox dual head vga to usb ( which by the way needs a vga port) my laptop is a fujitsu tablet t4210 on a docking station. I really find one extra screen usefull but 2 would be ideal still trying to make it work. Matrox say it cant be done , but not sure i belive them

[Ignatius]

I hadnt really thought about a graphics card I guessed it would just work if I connected it via a different port, however, I may well be wrong...

Let us know if you manage to do it. As I said earlier, I'd be interested to know how it can be done. I looked into it a while ago and failed. It seems that imiddleton25 has had problems too.

[localzuk]

I had this working with a Sunix USB->Vga adapter, worked fine. The processing is offloaded to the CPU I think, and then the USB device simply displays it. So, you don't get anything fancy out of it but it displays fine.

[woody04]

Thanks everyone for the replies!!

 

I had this working with a Sunix USB->Vga adapter, worked fine. The processing is offloaded to the CPU I think, and then the USB device simply displays it. So, you don't get anything fancy out of it but it displays fine.

 

This sounds promising, I will be using it for work so it doesn't need to be amazing just needs to work. I looked up the sunix usb to vga adapters and found two... which one did you use?? I am guessing it was the top one

 

SUNIX|VGA2614|USB 2.0 HI-RESOLUTION VGA ADAPTOR | CPC

 

or

 

SUNIX|ST122LE|USB POWERED 2-PORT VGA SPLITTER | CPC

[localzuk]

Yup, the top one. Bought it from CPC too.