Dual monitors setup

[asupavillain]

i have 2 monitor plugins(1 on mobo,1 on the videocard) is it possible 2 do a dual screen setup?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

:wave: Welcome to TechSpot :wave:

Well, it depends on what harddrive you've got, who made the motherboard and the graphics card, what os you are running, and if the drivers of the two cards are compatible. Then it depends on what you want to use it for.

But yes, it should be possible to do a dual screen setup, though it might take a bit of work..

 

[asupavillain]

i have a geforce MX 440 as a video card
a ASRock motherboard K7S41/K7S41GX
and im running windows XP/Home

 

[ChineseTechie]

I thought you can only use either the onboard video card or the plug-in one, not both at the sametime.

cT

 

[vnf4ultra]

I believe that what chinesetechie said is correct, unless it's a board based on the radeon rs480 (radeon xpress 200) chipset.

To do dual monitor you'll probably need a dual head video card(one that has either, 1vga+1dvi, 2vga, or 2 dvi, depending on your monitors and what adapters you have. Most all video cards now are dual head.

Well, it depends on what harddrive you've got, who made the motherboard and the graphics card, what os you are running, and if the drivers of the two cards are compatible. Then it depends on what you want to use it for.

?Umm... Harddrive? What does that matter when doing a dual monitor setup?
Drivers of the TWO cards? I don't think he has two, afaik.

 

[ChineseTechie]

I would go with what vnf4 suggested. Get a video card that has dual head, then you can have two monitors plug onto the same video card and have dual screen.

cT

 

[Didou]

You can use both the onboard video & the add-in VGA card if the onboard VGA does not get disabled once an add-in VGA card is detected. Look in your motherboard's manual for that information.

 

[asupavillain]

im guessing mines is disabled because my screen wont turn on. . . is there a way to enable it?

 

[ChineseTechie]

Then it seems like your mobo chooses one or the other depending what the config is.

cT

 

[asupavillain]

so that means i cant enable it?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

I could've sworn I wrote motherboard... Oh, well, the rest of my post were true...

The way to check is to go into the bios with the add-in card installed and see if you can enable onboard video. If you're lucky you will now have 2 active cards.
But it isn't highly likely as to implement this solution the mobo manufacturers have to use an extra "channel" to the IGP, instead of just linking it to the AGP "channel".

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Got this message from asupavillain, and since it has everything to do with this thread (and the fact that I'm going to answer it here) I'm posting it:

on da website for my mobo it says i can do it www.asrock.com go 2 support click faq list and go 2 k7s41 click on that and than the second one says i can do that. and can u please check the bios update for me because it says something about dual screens do you think i need it?

It states that you can indeed use your onboard graphics with an add-in graphics card, as long as it's a PCI card. It will not work with an AGP card as that "channel" is used for the onboard graphics.

So you might be able to use your GF4 440MX, as long as it's the PCI version and not AGP (using the white connector on the motherboard and not the brown one)...

 

[ChineseTechie]

Really.... Wow.... I never knew that.... I thought it's alway one or the other.

cT