Dual External Monitors on Laptop?

[compdata]

So i have a HP HDX16t with a 512MB Geforce 9600M GT video card running Win7 64bit Home Premium. The laptop has a VGA and an HDMI output. I currently have an external monitor (19" ViewSonic VX900) hooked up to the VGA output. Does anyone know if i can hook my second external monitor (also ViewSonic VX900) up as well through the HDMI port? The VX900 has VGA and DVI-D inputs, so i would definitely need an HDMI to DVI adapter (which i don't have currently). I have searched around on this, but havn't been able to find anything conclusive. Nvidia's 9600m GT page is sorely lacking in details.

I know i could set this up by buying a Matrox DualHead2Go adapter as well, but i was hoping to avoid spending an extra $200 that i would rather put into upgrading my aging monitors. Also the apparent downside to the DualHead2Go adapter is that i would need to place both monitors on one side of my laptop vs one on either side (as i had hoped to do).

 

[compdata]

Anyone try this before?

 

[compdata]

So the answer is yes and no. I got the HDMI to DVI adapter and hooked up my second external monitor. I can get two of the three monitors (2 external and laptop screen) to display at a time, but not all three (NVIDIA utility says video card only supports two monitors). So now i have to decide which monitors i like the most

 

[tylercollier]

Re: Dual External Monitors on Laptop? Reply to Thread

Thanks compdata. I have the same video card and your latest post helped me to poke around for more settings until I was able to run two external monitors. I couldn't do it with the built-in setup screens in Vista (x64), but was able to once I went to "Advanced Settings" -> "GeForce 9600M GT", then click "Start the NVIDIA control panel". From there it was pretty intuitive by going to Display -> Set up multiple displays. I did reboot my computer after I couldn't figure out how to do it directly through the built-in Windows setup screens, so I'm not sure if that's required, but FYI to others.

I will let you know if I figure out how to run two external monitors AND the laptop display. That would be cool, but having my two external displays is much better than the laptop's display (1366x768 or something lame like that) so at least I'm better off already.

Also, I read up on the Matrox DualHead2Go product too and didn't like that all monitors must run at the same resolution. I didn't know that the monitors have to be on one side of the computer, I'm glad you mentioned it, that stinks.