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Mutliple External Displays with a Laptop
- Thread starter MTXR
- Start date
There's always the docking station option. That'll get you to two screens usually, though it may have some restrictions. Mine, for example, has one DVI-D and one VGA plug, so I have to use one digital and one analog connection to support 2 screens.
I've seen fancy docking stations that support PCI or PCI-e cards. Lenovo offers them for some models I think. At least in theory you could stuff a Matrox quad head card in one of those and run six displays. These sorts of things aren't available for most laptops though, so the best you'll usually be able to do is a docking station or port replicator that has two outputs on it.
For three screens, you'll probably need a docking station and one of those Matrox boxes if you want to run them all at 1920x1200. The triple screen Matrox gizmo maxes out at 1680x1050, but you can get to 1920x1200 with 2 screens. If you have dual link DVI out, be sure to look at the digital triple screen model. The "digital" dual screen model apparently uses analog input.
Another option is getting one or more of those USB video adapters. They kind of suck since USB really isn't a good way to attach a monitor, but will at least give you basic use of the screen.
Finally, you might also be able to find a video card that goes in an ExpressCard or PCMCIA slot.
I've seen fancy docking stations that support PCI or PCI-e cards. Lenovo offers them for some models I think. At least in theory you could stuff a Matrox quad head card in one of those and run six displays. These sorts of things aren't available for most laptops though, so the best you'll usually be able to do is a docking station or port replicator that has two outputs on it.
For three screens, you'll probably need a docking station and one of those Matrox boxes if you want to run them all at 1920x1200. The triple screen Matrox gizmo maxes out at 1680x1050, but you can get to 1920x1200 with 2 screens. If you have dual link DVI out, be sure to look at the digital triple screen model. The "digital" dual screen model apparently uses analog input.
Another option is getting one or more of those USB video adapters. They kind of suck since USB really isn't a good way to attach a monitor, but will at least give you basic use of the screen.
Finally, you might also be able to find a video card that goes in an ExpressCard or PCMCIA slot.
