Use laptop monitor as an extra monitor?

I was thinking of buying another 17" lcd to have a 4 monitors setup.

But is it possible to get a laptop and set it up as the 4th monitor and also have an extra laptop on hand for travel?

The laptop I plan to get is the HP 5400 series with dual monitor support.

thanks in advance for the help,

 

Great question!

I was wondering the same thing myself and never thought of asking.

 

I know you can hook up 4 monitors to a laptop, but as for integrating the laptop to a desktop system already running, I don't know. Will your TA software allow two open versions at once? If so, a router to the laptop should allow extra monitor like performance, but you'd need to use the separate mouse and keyboard.

Jay

 

would you then have to use the laptop's keyboard with the other monitor's?

 

I use the HP Pav ZD7020 with a 17" screeen when I travel, it is the most comfortable laptop that I ever used (and I used many). The screen is great but unfortunatly you can't use it as a fourth monitor to hook up to you main desktop only as a seperate machine (that is as far as I know at least). The laptop does support a second monitor and it works great as well. What you can do is hook it up to a KVM and control it through your main keyboard and mouse. Of couse you would have to switch back and fourth through the KVM.

Hope it helps

TM Trader

 

VNC can probably help you out.

 

What's the video card in the laptop. I have a ATI Rage Mobility in my older Dell Latitude, and with a couple changes to the WinXP registry, was able to get dual monitor support.

 

Usual disclaimers apply, you're responsible for your own system.

I did this process and it worked for me, but I backed up everything just in case

Quoted from this site:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum/messages.asp?Topic=852



"Johannes van den Bosch 2002-03-01 17:20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expand Desktop didn't work out of the box either with my Compaq Evo N160 notebook running Windows XP pro.

A simple registry hack did the trick (should work for Win2000 too):

* Start Regedit.exe
* Search for the keys "DisableDualView"
* Change the value from 1 to 0
* Repeat until you changed all keys (about 5 of them)
* Reboot

And you now have the "Expand desktop" options in your display properties window...

Good luck!"

 

I think it was Rad... something

Is it easy to set it back to the original configuration?
and if so what is the best way?

thanks,

 

I was looking for a nice multi-desktop manager and came across this and thought of this thread:

http://download.com.com/3000-2346-10256591.html?tag=lst-0-1

I don't know if it will help or not.

Good luck.