3 Montiors on Laptop (2 External, 1 Laptop LCD)

Hi Guys,

I want to know if this is possible without any additional hardware, I
have Dell D620 which has 1 VGA and 1 DVI.

I can at a time run two of the monitors but not all three, in the
display properties of Windows Vista at a time I am only seeing 2
displays (not three) even if I trun all the monitors on.

I can either run Laptop LCD with one external LCD or both external
LCD, at the end only two monitors are running at the same time.

I want to use 3, anybody knows if this has anything to do with a
software configuration or I need an additional hardware (I really dont
want to invest anymore money )

Thanks.

dll2002dll.DeleteThis@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> I want to know if this is possible without any additional hardware, I
> have Dell D620 which has 1 VGA and 1 DVI.
>
> I can at a time run two of the monitors but not all three, in the
> display properties of Windows Vista at a time I am only seeing 2
> displays (not three) even if I trun all the monitors on.
>
> I can either run Laptop LCD with one external LCD or both external
> LCD, at the end only two monitors are running at the same time.
>
> I want to use 3, anybody knows if this has anything to do with a
> software configuration or I need an additional hardware (I really dont
> want to invest anymore money )
>
> Thanks.

Your laptop appears to have three output options, but likely only
two can be used at a time. The GPU is part of the Intel chipset.
Typically, GPUs have two display channels, otherwise known as
"dual head operation".

Extra displays can be created in several different ways.

There is a PCMCIA card with a VGA connector on the end, made
by Villagetronics. This is suitable for older laptops with
the PCMCIA slot on them.

http://www.villagetronic.com/vtbook/index.html

I'm not aware of the equivalent in an Expresscard.

There is more than one USB connected display device, but
on those, both the display bandwidth and the resolution would
have some limits. Shop around, because there are some that
work better than this example. You want to read the
reviews very carefully on these, to determine if
they can update the display fast enough for what you
want to do.

http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/rr-usb2-vga.html

The next solution, is a DualHead2go or a TripleHead2Go from
Matrox. There are a total of four different versions. For
the Triplehead, you might set your laptop to create a
3840 x 1024 output on one of the two display connectors.
The Triplehead, splits the 3840 x 1024, into three connectors
with a 1280 x 1024 image on each.

With the TripleHead2Go, you could have a maximum of six monitors.
You'd need the VGA version of the adapter for your VGA connector,
and the DVI version of the adapter for your DVI output. As well,
the laptop would need to support the wide display resolution
mentioned above, which not all GPUs will be able to do. Some
GPUs are more capable than others. (Check the first link
for compatibility info.)

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/corpo/support/compatibility/compatibility.php
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2go/home.php
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2go/digital/home.php

"TripleHead2Go: The Latest External Multi-Display Upgrade from Matrox"
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2806&p=2

Paul