Dual Monitor woes

[Doomination]

Hey guys, I'm trying to set up a dual monitor system, and I'm running into some problems... I've set up a dual monitor system before with a laptop, so I know how to navigate the windows settings..

I have one vga plugged into my video card, and the other plugged into my motherboard. Windows is only detecting one monitor, however..

Essentially, I'm getting no signal to the monitor plugged into my mobo

any ideas?

thanks!

 

[Vegeta897]

I'm almost positive that you can't run a dual monitor setup by using 2 different graphics devices.

You need a video card with 2 outputs.

 

[Krynn72]

You can do multiple monitors on multiple graphics cards, but I think your onboard video card on your motherboard gets disabled when you install a real one.

 

[Doomination]

and there's no way to enable it?

 

[Krynn72]

You can try, by going into your motherboard's bios (when your computer is starting up, it will tell you which key to press. Probably Delete or an F key) and enabling it if it lets you. There will be something saying like, Advanced Features, or Onboard Features, or something similar. In there will be a section allowing you to enable/disable/auto detect the onboard video card. There might be driver conflicts doing that though.

 

[Doomination]

I've been through the BIOS looking for something like that several times now -- there's nothing that mentions anything remotely related to video cards/onboard features or anything like that - very limited on this pc

 

[VirusType2]

I agree with everything everyone has said. External card will override onboard card (if you don't have an option to choose in the BIOS). Otherwise, it will be either or - not both.

What external video card do you have? You may have two display outputs (nearly all of them do) and just never noticed.

 

[Doomination]

radeon hd 5550

 

[Krynn72]

Yeah. That has two outputs. You'll just need either an adapter for your monitor's DVI cable to fit in the D-Sub output of the video card, or an HDMI cable that can plug into your monitor and video card (assuming one of your monitors have HDMI ports.

 

[Doomination]

ah great, wasted 35 bucks on a vga split hoping that would ameliorate the issue -- it just clones the signal though

 

[YROC]

Return cable. Say you got the wrong one.

 

[Doomination]

right, only problem.. i already trashed the plastic box it came in, and the receipt and the bag

all i have is the cable/manual lol

 

[VirusType2]

right, only problem.. i already trashed the plastic box it came in, and the receipt and the bag

all i have is the cable/manual lol

You have a lot to learn!

My Dad would tease me that I save the package to whatever I buy until the receipt expiration date. But it's really smart. You really never know. Things break, better versions come out; you might find a different way to do something and you no longer need the item, and so on.

Every once in a while I need to return something and so I go through a stack of receipts and throw away any that are expired (Wal-Mart gives you 3 months to return stuff, for example)