2 external LCDs on laptop?

Hi all,

I am wondering if there are any laptops on the market today (or coming soon) that can support 2 LCDs in addition to the laptop LCD, giving a total of 3 monitors at the same?

PS. I saw Matrox has a DualHead2Go product but would prefer if this was a standard feature.

 

You would need a kick butt gpu. can you post you what laptop you have?

 

You would need any laptop that has two monitor out ports. Uh, wait...you might need the dual-head still as I think that all laptop GPUs are hard limited to two outputs (desktops have the same problem most of the time too).

 

Thanks, I have updated my signature with my machine... it's about 3 years old.

I'm just thinking about an upgrade, and it would be really nice to be able to plug in 2 LCDs and have 3 monitors. I currently use 1 external LCD.

The laptop is used 95% for web development purposes (xampp, Photoshop, Fireworks, etc.) and I always have a ton of applications open.
I don't need to play games, but it would be nice...

 

The number of simultaneous outputs is limited by the number of RAMDAC's on a graphics card. In layman's terms, a RAMDAC is basically a location where the output of the graphics card is stored and converted to the appropriate signal for the specified device and color pallet. for the output. I believe that HDMI and DVI still use something like a RAMDAC, however this "RAMDAC" will only take care of the color pallet since the signal is digital.

The Matrox Dual-Head handles this limitation by making the monitors connected to it appear as one large monitor. The RAMDAC in your laptop will supply the signal for the one large monitor and the Dual-Head will take care of splicing the signal and reconverting it.

Hope this helps.

Feel free to correct to me. I was curious about why you couldn't use a laptop screen and 2 external screens, so I did a bit of research in 5 minutes.

 

Thanks for that, I did some quick research as well and found someone who said they did hook up two external LCDs, but the laptop's internal LCD would be either inoperable or showed a mirror image of one of the LCDs. So in the end, it still meant only 2 screens and not 3...

 

I am getting a matrox dual head 2 go digital edition in the next few days, so I can test it for you. I actually had the same question, but I think the answer is no.
Matrox states that the dual head can do a 3840x1200resolution, which means two external 1920x1200res panels.
I will be ordering two 1920x1200 lcd's and I wonder if I can use them with the 17" 1920x1200 monitor in my laptop as a 5760x1200 resolution panel.
I have no clue if it works, but if you can wait a week or so I can tell you yes or no.

K-TRON

 

Great! That would be perfect. I will await your update

 

Any update on this?

I have an HP dv7t and want to be able to run my dual 20' (1600x1200) off of it. Having two external + laptop screen would be optimal, but just the two external would work. Do they make docking stations that can do this? Is it possible to close the laptop screen, use the vga out port, and hdmi port with a hdmi to dvi cable to get both monitors to work (I haven't tried this yet)?

 

The Dell D-series supports 2 external LCDs up to 1920x1200 (WUXGA) if you use the docking station.

The Dell E-series has a built-in Displayport output that can drive a 2560x1600 display (ie: 30" Dell 3008WFP or similar). With the docking station, you could attach 2 such 30" displays, and run them at the full 2560x1600 resolution.

So in terms of overall display area, 3 x WUXGA = 6.9 megapixels. 2 x 2560x1600 = 8.19 megapixels. So the 2-screen solution with the larger screens gives you more area than a 3-display solution with the WUXGA screens.

http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2008/03/dell-e-series-laptops-for-any-sort-of.html

(blog entry about the features of the Dell docking stations for the new E-series)

 

sorry, I totally forgot to post.
I did try using two external lcd's, but the image will only stretch over the two external ones. The laptop image, will be a clone of one of the stretched monitors. So, the resolution was 3840 x 1200 over the two external monitors, my 1920x1200 res panel on my laptop was a clone of one of the images on the external.

I was hoping that the image would stretch across all three, but it doesnt.

I am pretty sure docking stations are direct pickups off the onboard graphics, so no matter what the image on the external will be either a direct clone of the lcd screen, or an image stretched over the lcd and the external plugged in via the dock. Having another video port on the dock will just give the same putput, cause the dock is just a port extender, so it will not split the image.

K-TRON

 

Thanks, I'll look into it.

 

Are you saying you dont think the docking station would be able to run my two 1600x1200 for a total area of 3200x1200 desktop?

Optimally I would like to run my laptop screen (1680x1050) with two 1600x1200 20' external monitors with the image streched accross all 3. If that isnt possible I would like to be able to shut the laptop screen and run the two external monitors for a total desktop area of 3200x1200.

Whats my best option?

Thanks

 

you read correct. The dock is just an image of what your laptop already has. So if you plug a monitor into the vga port on the laptop, and a monitor into th vga port on the dock, they will both show the same thing, because they are the same video feed. You need a graphical splitter to be able to make use of two screens with a 3200x1200 desktop. To do this, you will need the matrox dual head.

K-TRON

 

Are you sure you are doing it right? This makes it look like two external + laptop screen should work. Are you still trying to get laptop + two external monitors to work? I have been trying unsuccesfuly to find out how to run my laptop + 2 20' 1600x1200 monitors at the same time but now one has been able to show me how. I am going crazy trying to figure this out.

 

My laptops are nowhere near high-end graphics wise yet neither have an issue driving dual monitors; one via VGA, the other DVI -- max is 1 monitor @ 1920x1200, the other at 1680x1050

Work laptop: HP / Compaq 6910p
Gfx: ATI Mobility Radeon x2300 /

Perosnal Machine: Asus C90S
Gfx: NVidian M8600 / 256MB

Getting the third display to run simultaneously? Hmmm, haven't tried that. I simply don't have the desktop real estate to pull that off.

 

thanks for the link, I will check it out. The matrox power desk software is a little bit hard to figure out, so I simply did not configure it properly.

The problem you are having is that the dock does not split the video signal, so it is the same as the video signal outputted from the vga port on the laptop. Since they are the same, they will post the same graphics. You will need a matrox video splitter in order to get two screens to post from one video source.
Having a dock does not make a second video source, since the dock is a replicator, which will post the same as the onboard graphics.

K-TRON

 

Please let me know if you can get it to work with all 3 working at once.

Are there any other external video cards that would allow me to run two external screens + laptop screen?

Ive got my new laptop and I am itching to get it set up so I can use both my external monitors with it.

Thanks

 

Another interesting product to look at:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=29798&vpn=100-U2-UV16-A1&manufacture=eVGA

 

Were you able to get it to work Ktron?

 

I just moved back up to college and I only have one lcd with me, so I just have the one external screen running with my laptop screen as one big screen.
I can try it tonight on my laptop, when I go to the library, they have two screens their I can test it on.

K-TRON

 

I have the Matrox product & will soon buy a laptop. I want the video card in the laptop to be able to supply enough detail to the Matrox to not limit the quality of the video on 2 monitors. How good of a video card do I need to get? I have a choice of 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS or 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT. Thanks so much.

 

I would go with the 8600Gt, it is a much more powerful graphics card. The 8400Gs is really weak, and cannot play many modern games. The 8600Gt is a much better option, and it will help decrease the lag time over a huge external screen.
I have my screens powered by a ATI x1400 in my one laptop, and video playback is much smoother with my quadro fx2500m in my other laptop.
Go for the more powerful gpu, you will be glad you bought the more powerful gpu.

K-TRON

 

Thank you for your input. It's quite helpful.

 

I bought the maxtor dualhead2go digital and it works like I hoped. I am running 3 monitors now total with my laptop. Laptop monitor, and two 20' external monitors. It took like 30 seconds to set up, I like and would recomend it if you are looking to add two external monitors to a laptop.

 

awesome, that is good to hear. So I guess I can go buy that second LCD, so I can use both of them an my laptop one at the same time.

Just out of curiosity, were you able to get the desktop to span all three screens at the same time,
or
just the two external, and the internal one being an independent?

K-TRON

 

Thanks for this, I will keep in mind. Although it does not look like I will be running 3 monitors any time soon - my Viewsonic VP201b decided to crap out after 3 years

 

I can drag items between all 3 screens if that is what you are asking. The toolbar on the bottom doesnt span all 3, it is only on 1. I can move desktop icons on to any of the screens. If you have one external now it works kind of like that but it tricks the computer into thinking your external monitor is twice as big, then puts that onto two screens.

 

That is what I wanted to know, thank you.

K-TRON

 

Ultramon ( http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) can probably span the taskbar onto all monitors. It's got other useful features as well.

 

So it's a hardware limitation? Can you provide more info/links? I have Asus F3SV and can run only two screens at a time and am trying to figure out if there's a workaround on software level.