Dual Monitor Compatibility

Community
1

Hi,
I recently bought a DVI Y-splitter from eBay a couple of days ago and I’m having problems. My operating system Windows Vista Home Premium isn’t finding both monitors at the same time in Device Manager and I have tried going into display settings and into my NVidia control panel but nothing is working. My graphics card is an NVidia GeForce 7025, I only bought my PC Tower late last year and my monitors are HannsG HW191D and a Dell 1703FPT. Would I need to buy a new graphics card with two DVI ports on them or is there a way of making this Y-splitter work?

2

I don’t think the Y-splitter is going to do what you think it will. You will either need to use a dual port video card, our use a DisplayLink USB device. The latter is an inexpensive way to add multi-monitor support, something we use extensively here.

Hope that helps.

3

A Y splitter can only be used to send the same signal to both screens.

To have the computer see both screens and be able to send different images to each you need a graphics card that supports dual monitors.

4

Either another video card, or one of these type of devices that attach to your computer via USB:
http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Multiple-2048x1152-1920x1200-DisplayLink/dp/B0038P1TP4/ref=pd_cp_e_pw_1

5

Would this work?
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11051.m43.l1123/7?euid=143df54113254fdc815fafbd38f1f97c&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D120780631991%26ssPageName%3DADME%3AX%3ARTQ%3AUS%3A1123

6

This is a splitter. The same image would appear on both screens, not multi-monitor.

You need something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1080P-VIDEO-USB-DVI-HDMI-VGA-DISPLAYLINK-ADAPTER-/190548166930?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c5d8e4912

We use something similar by IOGear. The picture attached here is of my desktop setup. In my case, I use a laptop connected to two additional monitors, each monitor including the laptop screen operates independent of each other:

7

So would I need to buy two of these to have two screens working individually but on the same desktop?

8

You will need one for each additional monitor. Thus, if you have three monitors you wish to use, you would need two of these devices, one for each additional monitor that the video card on the computer isn’t plugged into:
Monitor 1: Plugged directly into PC video card
Monitor 2: Plugged into its own USB DisplayLink device.
Monitor 3: Plugged into its own USB DisplayLink device.
Monitor 4: Plugged into its own USB DisplayLink device.
Monitor X: Plugged into its own USB DisplayLink device.

I hope that clears up what you need to do.

-Bing

9

The usb->dvi things do work, but they are a pretty bad option if you can avoid it – like you’ve got a desktop that you can install video cards in. And you can get a video card with dual-dvi for the same $49 without too much trouble.

10

So if I bought the displaylink thing, would it look something like this?:

11

I agree - the only time you wouldn’t get a dual graphics card to put inside the computer and would look for an external solution instead is with a computer that doesn’t have room to insert a dual graphics card inside.

12

Monitor 1 would connect direct to the graphics card in the computer. For each subsequent monitor the displaylink would connect to a usb port, the other end (which may use a vga to dvi adapter) connects to the dvi port of a monitor. It may be best if the usb port the used is one of the ones in at the back of the computer and not via a hub