Gone dual monitor!

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Jeffers
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Gone dual monitor!

Post by Jeffers »

I've had a very elderly Acer AL1715 lying around for ages. I've also thought that there are a few things that I do on the PC that would benefit from a second display.
So I thought it'd be a nice little project to try and get my old monitor up and running as a second display.
First problem.... my modern graphics card doesn't have a VGA output, which is all my old monitor has.
So, plugged the monitor into the Motherboard but it doesn't work....
Did a bit of research and found that I had to tweak the BIOS to get the VGA output enabled. So it's sorted? Nope, more stuff needed. So next it's into device manager to get some drivers installed.
So does it work? No.... next it's more Window's stuff that needs twiddling with.
Anyway, it's finally up and running. My first venture into multiple displays has finally been successfully achieved....
It would probably be very routine to you young tech savvy people on here but I'm quite pleased with myself that I got it working...
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Woodles
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Re: Gone dual monitor!

Post by Woodles »

Only two? :lol:

For future reference, two of my monitors also only had VGA inputs and the GPU didn't provide that so I got a couple of these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HDMI-Male-IN ... :rk:6:pf:0 Work flawlessly, cheap and no setting up required. there's also versions available that pass audio but I didn't need that. They only drive 17" monitors but they look fine at 1900 * 1200 resolution (monitor limit)
Jeffers wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:27 pmIt would probably be very routine to you young tech savvy people on here but I'm quite pleased with myself that I got it working...
Yeah, that describes me exactly! :oops: :roll:

Congrats Jeff, you'll soon wonder how you ever managed without it and be eyeing up monitor number three :)

Mark
Jeffers
Active UBT Contributor 15+ yrs
Posts: 1627
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:00 am
Location: Halifax, West Yorks.

Re: Gone dual monitor!

Post by Jeffers »

Woodles wrote: Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:05 am Only two? :lol:

For future reference, two of my monitors also only had VGA inputs and the GPU didn't provide that so I got a couple of these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HDMI-Male-IN ... :rk:6:pf:0 Work flawlessly, cheap and no setting up required. there's also versions available that pass audio but I didn't need that. They only drive 17" monitors but they look fine at 1900 * 1200 resolution (monitor limit)
Jeffers wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:27 pmIt would probably be very routine to you young tech savvy people on here but I'm quite pleased with myself that I got it working...
Yeah, that describes me exactly! :oops: :roll:

Congrats Jeff, you'll soon wonder how you ever managed without it and be eyeing up monitor number three :)

Mark
An adaptor certainly looks like it would do the job easier, as it keeps everything connected to the graphics card. But I didn't think of that approach...
And as it's now working, I don't see any point in changing it.
As for more than two monitors.... I don't think so, for one thing I'd need a bigger desk!
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UBT - Timbo
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Re: Gone dual monitor!

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Jeff

Excellent stuff !!

In the good old bad old days of Win XP Pro, I experimented with dual displays but it always went a bit t*tsup - probably because the CPUs and GPUs weren't really up for the task.

I then tried with Win 7 Pro and despite newer CPUs / GPUs and better monitors, (using HDMI, instead of VGA), it still got it's knickers in a twist. This was more a problem when there were times when to save some leccy, I only switched one monitor on.

So, in the end, instead of 2x 20" monitors, I bit the bullet and got a nice Samsung 32" LCD. And what's nice about this is that it has 3 switchable inputs: HDMI, DVI and VGA...so I can plug 3 PCs into it and switch between them, without the need for a KVM !!

regards
Tim
Jeffers
Active UBT Contributor 15+ yrs
Posts: 1627
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:00 am
Location: Halifax, West Yorks.

Re: Gone dual monitor!

Post by Jeffers »

Well, I've had the setup for a while but I decided to go the dongle route as it keeps everything under the control of Nvidia software. Got a DP to VGA adaptor through Amazon for £5.49, hooked it up and away it went, no problems.
Just to tidy things up I went back to the BIOS and turned off the Mobo graphics...
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