Three computer monitors

I’m currently running two monitors on my PC using a video card and not the on board video which appears to be disabled when the extra card goes in. The card has three connectors but when you plug three monitors in only any two of them can be used. Windows recognises all three as does the video card driver but it can only display a picture on any two of them.

So, what’s the cheapest way of being able to use all three monitors? I don’t game, its just a bit of light CAD, SketchUp plus email or whatever.

What graphics card is it?

USB video card.

I have the same setup as you have on my work machine with a Quardo 450 or soemthing driving two monitors and a WS Tech USB display adapter driving the third one. It’s good for e-mail and documents, but not somehting I would use for games.

If you’re doing professional CAD, AMD makes specific FirePro cards that are designed for multi-monitor setups:

http://www.amd.com/UK/PRODUCTS/WORKSTATION/GRAPHICS/ATI-FIREPRO-3D/Pages/ati-firepro-3d.aspx

However if you’re just wanting 3 screens, you can do this:

ivy bridge processors will support up to 3 video outputs. so getting an ivy bridge processor with a Z77 motherboard that has a D-Sub, DVI and Hdmi outputs will help you without getting a graphics card. the integrated graphics on ivy bridge, while being horrible for gaming, will be fine for viewing spreadsheets.

I you have an AMD graphics card you may need a DisplayPort to DVI Active Adapter. The key part is that its “Active” I found that I could use two ports with a passive adapter and thee with one active, one passive and one HMDI cable

Here

My current card is an NVIDIA Geforce 210, it was only £18 but it drives two monitors fine. It has D-SUB, DVI-D and HDMI outputs so apparently having three outputs doesn’t actually mean it can drive three monitors all at once (all my monitors are LG ones and each one has the same three types of connector)!

Yep, very nice :-)

I would imagine that you can’t do what you want with just the 1 card, it probably won’t be able to drive all 3 inputs at once.

Am sure I’ve used both the on board and a card for a dual set up. Try enabling it in the bios.

I can’t remember if I disabled it when I put the new card in, but, for some reason the PC isn’t firing the keyboard up till the motherboard splash screen is long gone so I can’t press the del key to get into the bios.

Could be because it’s a usb keyboard, might needs one of those usb to old style connector adapters.

We use these at work.

http://uk.startech.com/AV/USB-Video-Adapters/USB-VGA-External-Multi-Monitor-Video-Adapter-High-Resolution~USB2VGA2

Seem to do what they’re supposed to.