Re: Dual Monitor Cable Question

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Are you sure the appropriate cable didn't ship with the video card? I'd start with the card manufacturer and see what cable they require for this. You can probably get an exact replacement for the correct cable rather than getting a generic one and hoping for the best.

I have a recent Dell with an ATI card that has a special cable you use to connect two monitors. It seems like this might be the norm with ATI, while the nVidia cards have two ports.

"Richard K" <Rkokoski@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eBdNwvL7IHA.1196@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks Brian. I realized about the post in this group after I posted it. I did also post in the XP group.

The answer you gave though is not correct. How I know... I have seen many Dell computers that do this very thing. But with the Dell they ship with your computer a splitter cable. And 2nd video card is probably going to be my only recourse though.

"Brian Cryer" <not.here@localhost> wrote in message news:uN9BPyJ7IHA.4108@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Richard K" <Rkokoski@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uEyLqEI7IHA.1196@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have a Windows XP Pro computer that has a dual monitor option video card.

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general would be a better newsgroup to use, but answer given below.

I can see this via the desktop/settings Display and I have 2 monitor options. This video card is equipped with a single VGA port. I bought a splitter to split into 2 monitors and then went into the settings to "extend" the desktop (via the checkbox) on the 2nd VGA. When I hit apply it does not save the checkbox settings and all I get is a same screen on both monitors and no extension.

I know the video card supports dual monitors based on the settings section but is there something special in splitter cables where I need to make sure I have a specialized one that will do dual monitor for extended desktops vs. show the same image?

If your video card only has one video port on it then it can only support one monitor. You may see multiple monitors in the settings but this only indicates that the logic on the card can support multiple monitors, but the card you have only has one port and thus can connect to only a single monitor. For this reason when you use a splitter you are just allowing the output to that one monitor to be shown on two monitors.

Do you by any chance have a second video card in your pc? Some pcs have video provided on the motherboard (and thus a vga port on back next to the other ports) and a separate vga/agp/pci graphics card. If this is the case then your *may* be able to connect two monitors, connect one to each port.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian




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