Dual monitors on XP pro? how do I do it?

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kunaak

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I am having a major headache trying to get a dual monitor set up to actually work.

I have a AGP geforce 3 TI 200 as my main video card now.
I have tried 3 different PCI cards.
every one saaid the same thing

"driver invalid, this hardware will not continue to install"

so no matter what I do XP will not recognize the drivers and allow me to install this hardware.

the PCI cards I have tried...
a Geforce 2 MX 200.
a comp-usa 32 meg card.
a geforce 4 MX 420.

the latest one, the Geforce 4, specifically states taht it supports dual monitor.
yet again, windows XP pro simply will not allow me to install it...

this is becoming very frustrating and I am honestly starting to consider dropping XP cause of this.
atleast with 2000 pro, things just installed.
with XP trying to do everything on it;s own it' becomes tedious to try and install things yourself.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeelp please.
 
Dual Monitor Support

Odd.

I'm running dual monitors with XP Pro. I just went out and bought a 15 dollar DVI to VGA adapter, plugged the second monitor into the DVI/adapter connector and re-booted. Nvidia's Nview (which is built into the Detonator drivers) automatically detected the second monitor and walked me through setting up the many options nview provides on multiple monitors. I set the orientation of the second monitor in the display settings (in needs to know which side of your primary monitor the secondary monitor is, left or right and voila! Dual display. Works like a charm.

Wrath
 
:confused: I know this is dumb, but whats a DVI to VGA adaptor?

does it ruin the image, like KVM switchs tend to?
 
no it won't ruin the picture, just go to radio shack and pick one up, or any other AV shop of your choice. :D
 
Just curious but
whats the advantage of having dual Monitors ???


pardon my ignorance Peeps
 
The joys of Duel Monitors

The point of two monitors depends on the sort of stuff you do.

I have been running duel monitors for a while now and I find them most usfull when I'm programming. On my main 21'' monitor I can have the IDE open full screen and on the second monitor I can look through help files, or web sites.

Most of the time I also use the second monitor for having my chat clients open, trillian, and my e-mail run all the time, that leaves my primary desktop available for movies etc.

Games seem to make a bit of a mess of my second monitor, so although my e-mail is still open and running if i takes focus it tends to mess up the games, in other cases you simply can't change focus to the second monitor whilst in the game.

The only really niggling problem I have is that if I run media player or power DVD on the second monitor and then give focus to something on the first screen, the movie or clip continues to play, I can hear it, but the window goes black?

I'm seriously considering a third monitor, just for the hell of it really.
 
I just bought an Abit siluro gf3 ti200 dvi. It has vga, dvi and tv outs. I'd like to set up a second monitor with a dvi to vga converter but I'm not sure if the card supports dual display or just the option of different outputs.

Does anyone know if i'll be able to have dual display withthis card?
 
Hey Wratchild you wouldnt be trying to impersonate me with your Avatar would you.

I hope you arent
 
Sweet!

Sweet Avatar dude! No, not trying to impersonate you at all. I just happen to be a punisher fan, and speaking of "Punisher Fans" I just bought one. ;-) My PC Case is modded out and features a Punisher cooling fan with a limited edition, officially licensed by Marvel Comics, laser cut Punisher grill. My PC is called "The Punisher." Here a pic of the grill before installation.

Wrath
 
As I understand it with this card its NOT do duel monitors, just dual output options, you could have it two monitors running but it would be the same desktop on both.

Originally posted by eyes
I just bought an dvi. It has vga, dvi and tv outs. I'd like to set up a second monitor with a dvi to vga converter but I'm not sure if the card supports dual display or just the option of different outputs.

Does anyone know if i'll be able to have dual display withthis card?
 
yeah i just tried it - borrowed a dvi-vga converter from work and plugged in an old monitor.

I got a cloned display for low resolution and i'm not sure the output was as good as when just one monitor was connected.

Dissapointing as it would have been cool to watch a dvd whilst I play a game or work.
 
I'm just curious... As I understand it, the cards do not actually have to support dual monitors. (unless you're talking about dual head cards of course!) In my experince, it's possible to plug in practically any video card(s) and get multiple screens capability. The thing is for the OS to support it, and XP does.

Now, I had some trouble just the other week actually with a GF2 AGP and a regular standard s3 PCI (connected to a flatscreen) I was going mad trying to get the )?^_=} flatscreen to be activated, but it just kept showing nothing what so ever... As I was going to give up, I tried one more thing: I changed the PCI card's possition to another PCI bus. And voila! It works! I got kind of mad, but hey, it worked!

Try that out? Not very likely, but try it (yes, other kinds of cards worked on that bus)
 
its alright wrath was just wondering. Nice fan grill.
 
I use two monitors with XP. The main 19" Viewsonic runs off a GeForce4 and the second monitor is a 15" Viewsonic LCD running of a standard 16Mg PCI S3 Savage4. Have had no problems what so ever in the 6 months I have been using them.

I have used the PCI card in any PCI slot on 3 different motherboards and they worked everytime.
 
i had probems with dual monitors too, until about an hour ago..
i had my main monitor and card installed ok, but there was some error with the other (pci) card.

so. after doing some posting, and not getting any answers that led to anything, i took a look in the bios.

guess what i found? :)

'primary vga bios card' set to 'agp'.

i didn't have a clue as to what it was, but changed it to pci just to se what would happen.

lo and behold, from now on, my crappy 14" monitor on the 2 mb pci card shows the bootuping, and when i enter windows my 19" with geforce4 becomes the main monitor again.
with the pci card functioning perfect.
and then everything went smoothly :)

so.

check your bios, if you have something like 'primary vga bios card'. (mine was found under the 'power' tab.)
 
Damn, that's what I forgot to say in my post. :( Something that happened to me the first time I set up the twin monitors. Sorry ppl, if I had remember, it might have made things easier for you.

Funny once you do a thing few times it just becomes the norm. If ever you have to reload XP, you will need to do that in the Bios everytime.
 

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