Zionworx

I have 2 outputs on my laptop, one is an analogue (the trapezium shaped plug) and a TV output (the din plug 1, not coaxial) and i want to see if my laptop supports tri monitor display, and i have no idea how to do it. anyone got any magical ideas?

Plug in all the devices (TV, extra montor, etc) and then reboot your computer (note sequent: plug in and reboot). Go to display setup and check it out. Sometimes, there is a "display controller" running (check the bottom right corner tool bar) and you may click on that and "control" from there.

You may be to use the setup to enable the extra displays.

William

so if i plug it all in, it should recognise it after the reboot???

Yes, if the system properly supports the extras. If you still don't see them, perhaps you need to bring it back to the shop. Alternatively, press the "Function + monitor" key combination. On my Compaq N400, it is Fn+F4 key combination. If you hold down the Fn key and then keep tapping on F4, it will cycle through the different display modes.

What OS are you running? And what computer? See my other topics on multiple monitors.

William

Its a it comes up with options like: LCD + TV, LCD + CRT, LCD, TV, CRT.
I guess there all the possibiliteies which may suggest it wont work. Erm... I'm running XP.

tv output is usually linked to the 2nd utput.

so 3 displays id not normal on a laptop

4 displays on a desktop machine..using a ATI card or othe rnew AGP card.

Regards
Edd Stonham
Webmaster

Do you know where i can get a display adapter for cheap as i want to keep the budget down?

Ed, if you are running XP, the cheapest solution is probably for you to plug in another (cheap single head) display card (could be from another computer), ie, you will then have two display cards. However, if the existing one is AGP (is this the right name?), you need to go into the BIOS and flip the AGP setting so that it is not the primary display (or something like this, can't remember - too long ago).

For the above to work, I assume that your computer and display card are not too old. Make sure that you plug in both monitor when you boot up your pc. This should normally work. If it doesn't work, you may need to dig into your pocket for more money. Otherwise, this solution is almost free. This issue has been discussed in another topics.

Have fun and do let us know how it goes.

I would plug in another card, but i have a laptop. My only other PC is my personal computer and i dont, really want to use that.

Another way, that had crossed my mind is that i want 2 of the dislpays to be the same, so i dont see why i cant just "make my own" cable. That would then give me unimited numbers of monitors. All id have to use is a cable coming from my computer, to a junction block thing, and then i could plug as many things into the other end of it as i liked, this would mean you could have 2 or 3 monitors (or TV screens which is what im using!!!) and one in the creche, and a mini TV in the kitchen, for example. This would mean, even though they werent in the service, the could still read the words, and would take the guessing out of knowing when the servoce has ended (many times, has this guess been wrong!!!!).

thanks for your helped.

and for the record, yes AGP is correct (although it depends on the colour of the slot, and how far back in your computer it is). The new(ish) type of slot is PCI. Anyway, thats by the by. Thanks again.

You can buy boxes that do this - have an input and a number of outputs - the one we use has 8. The main problem you will experience is when you 'split' the output signal - you split the quality of the signal going to both and this quality would decrease further if you have more outputs. The boxes that you buy have a power supply and amplify the signal to the outputs resulting in the same level of signal to each of the outputs. We bought ours second hand for around $60 NZ so if you search around you should be able to pick one up for cheap (unless you're an electronics whiz )

In theory, you could "wire up" as many as you wish but that vga port will not be able to sink so much current. You cannot parallel them and I afraid Chris's idea is the only fool proof method. Explore a little and perhaps you could come up with some bright idea which will work and do please let us know how it goes.

Another poor man solution I use is to "daisy chain" the projector because most projectors have one VGA in and one VGA out. So the vga out can be connected to another device, eg, vdu or another projector. Perhaps your projector has multiple output signal?