Scalper, under Display Properties, did you click in the boxes at the bottom left "Use this device as the primary monitor" amd "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor"? If not that is your problem I bet. I did the same thing
Matrox has many that will support up to 4 monitors but there are others as well... Matrox: G45X4QUAD-B QID-E128LPA Others: FireMV 2400 nvs 400 (This one can be a cheaper option) Xentera GT4 Search those titles for prices. There are other cards but these are some I like. The QID-E128LPA is for a PCIe slot not a standard PCI. Good Luck!
Thanks again mmc. I will look into those and I'll let ya know which route I chose and how it worked out. Triple, I did that for the first two screens. 1 a tv using dvi cable and 2 a normal monitor and it has been working. But now the goal is to get rid of the tv and add two new normal pc monitors making it a total of 3 monitors. Thats why I need this matrox box or a video card. But if you know a way to add all 3 without buying anything please let me know by all means. My computer does show that it supports 4 monitors on display properties and I still don't understand why it shows that..
Well, it depends on your video cards. It may be showing 4 monitors, because one of the video cards might support 2 monitors via a split cable. Some cards have one output on the video card, but have dual head adapters that hook up two monitors. What video cards do you have? You can get the cables on ebay if you need them.
go check out eBay. A lot of kids would buy a video card, and found out later that it is not powerful enough for their games. So they put the card up for sale, cheap. For most of the trading software, you don't need a very power card to drive it. At least not to the extend required by those 3D realism games.
Yea Tums, there are a lot of video cards on ebay. thanks, but maybe I won't need one for now. I know it sounds easy and it probably is but I've had some bad experiences trying to change hardware in a pc and I ended up damaging the pc back in 1999. So I decided to stay away from that. Triple, this is what the dell guy said: "Your pc has an ATI radeon 128 mb which supports dual monitors. Buy a monitor connecting dongle for the video card. Since your cable is blue, buy a vga dongle. Your pc also has a dvi port for another monitor." A dongle is probably another word for split cable. But he has no idea why the system is showing four monitor support. Even if I order the matrox box now, I can't get it for the coming week probably. So for now, I am going to purchase this dongle and just use two monitors. But to add the third monitor, can I purchase a cable which is dvi on one end and a normal monitor connector on the other end? (tech guy didn't know the answer to this) If I can do this then thats great, if not, I'd have to buy the matrox box. Thank you
Scalper, Did the guy tell you the model # (ie 9250, etc.) of the card? Does the cable you have now have the same ends on it, meaning would the ends fit into each other male/female? If it has a 60 pin connection on the video card end, it should support two separate screens. Some of the older cards support dual monitors, but they actually just display the same screen on two separate monitors, which doesn't help you for trading. Edit: I just re-read your original post. A radeon card most likely only supports two monitors, one DVI, and one VGA. If you have two monitors that are VGA, you can buy a DVI to VGA Adapter, or even a cable that has a DVI end for the video card and a VGA end for the monitor plug. It sounds like you will need to buy another video card for 3 monitors. I have two ATI Radeon cards, they only support two monitors each.
Nah, he didn't tell me a model number. Whatever he said, I posted there. The cables have the same end on it. they're male(pins) on both ends. I asked him specifically if I can have two different applications running on the two different screens and he said "yes, absolutely". I bought this pc a year ago so I guess it has the newer card. I have 3 PC monitors now. I am going to do this: 1. Buy a vga split/dongle and connect two monitors on the monitor port. 2. Like you said, I am going to ask for a cable that has a DVI end for the video card and a VGA end for the monitor plug. And use this cable to connect the 3rd monitor to the dvi port. The guy said that I do have 3 monitor support. 2 vga and 1 dvi. So I'll give it a try. These cables will probably cost me $200!! I'll update on how this works out. Gosh, I've turned this into rocket science. . I hope others find this useful.. Thank you very much everyone.
You can get a 128 Geforce FX card from BB which is about $110 a piece. When using multiple monitor set-ups keep you cards the same. Don't use 2 different cards made by different manufacturers for there are known issues for this. Newegg.com is another good place to buy cards.
You can get them cheaper than that on ebay. If you are in a hurry then you're limited to retail or a 2nd hand computer store. Good Luck with that.