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How to Run Multiple Monitors

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SevenFX

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I currently a few LCD monitors running from 1 PC, and thought I'd share the benefits with you.

However there are few requirements:

Windows XP Home or Professional or newer (best running SP2 (service pack2))
More than 1 video card or multiple head Video card(s)
Multiple Monitors & assoc cables
Decent Spec PC to Support configuration (Pentium 4, PCI(E) motherboard plenty of memory & above)

Rather than writing a detailed post, hence reinventing the wheel, I found a few good links that have plenty of information and could answer questions from there, wherever I can.

http://www.geeks.com/techtips/2005/techtips-AUG18-05.htm
http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/monitors/0,239029422,240053704,00.htm

Cheers
SevenFX
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

SevenFX,
You are a mind reader, I was going to start a thread about this topic myself.
I am no computer expert, unlike your good self, but I managed to set up a dual monitor arrangement on my PC and was amazed at how easy (and cheap) it was. For those thinking of doing so, here is my experience.
I bought a dual head video card on eBay. These come in a variety of price ranges, newer ones seem to cost $100+ (and I mean PLUS, some are over $600!!!!), but these expensive cards are to allow PC gamers to get good images with 3D computer games. I don’t play computer games (not that there’s anything wrong with that) so didn’t need one of these expensive cards. All I needed was one to show 2D graphics (that’s charts to you and me!); $25 on eBay! Matrox Dual Head G450 was the name, quite an “old tech” card but that was all that was needed.
I installed it myself. I had some experience with taking the side off my PC box; I have upgraded RAM, installed a network card, and installed a second hard drive in the past. There are plenty of guides on the net, just Google what you want to do and follow the instructions. The card went into a “slot” on the motherboard, an AGP slot. Apparently the absolute latest cards are PCIe cards that go into PCI slots (PCI and AGP slots are different shapes/colours so easy to differentiate). No installation problems at all.
I had a spare monitor, in fact I had 2 spare monitors, these things seem to accumulate (I had 1 monitor, then 2, now 3 – Fibonacci take note…). My PC runs WinXP SP2 as SevenFX recommends, 750 odd MB RAM, nothing special about it at all, buts its not bad.
The computer recognised the card and did everything to get it running, a bit of setting the display properties and I then had 2 monitors! Getting instructions from the net was great, a lot of the guides have photos showing the whole process.
Next challenge is to add another monitor (the other spare one, may as well its doing nothing)…stay tuned.
Thanks for starting this thread SevenFX, I think it is going to be of value to a lot of people. Anyone who has a spare monitor at home and has thought about a dual monitor arrangement, if I can do it….
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Sounds like your doing fine there timmy, yell out if I you get stuck.

XP will support easily 6-8 monitors, so keep filling the pci slots. :

Also IMO a trader may want 3 or more monitors greater than 19" running higher resolutions, which is where the faster technology & more resources comes into it, however using most existing equiptment (3yr or newer) will work fine, just slower & sometimes clunkier.

p.s PCIE (PCIExpress) is the fastest, latest and most favourable video card slots, and PCI are the older slots.


EDIT: you don't reliase how useful 2-3 (4,5,6 ) monitors can be during the trading day till you've tried it. Highly recommend it.

Cheers
SevenFX
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

I already run dual screens at home, but I did it the easy way and had the computer custom built (or modified) about 6 months ago. Needed a new computer at the time so thought I'd get dual screens when I found out it wasn't that much more expensive, cost of an extra screen really. I'll be looking at adding a 3rd screen shortly too, so Timmy's info will come in handy as I'm not very good with computers, lol.

Didn't think I'd use the dual screens as much as I have, very handy, even for things other then trading, like having 2 spread sheets open or a spreadsheet and the internet/charts etc. Worth the small extra cost imo.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

I took a different path for more monitors. I use a 37 inch lcd tv and use an Nvidia card. This allows one to use "Nvidia Grids."


Nvidia grids allow you to break up the screen into sections, so you can maximise a window to the contraints set by the grids you make up.

I have the left hand side of the screen with my main page and have the right side split horizontally so I have 2 quarter sized screens on top of each other.

Youy can now get a 32 inch lcd that will 1920x1080 res fro under $1000. Starts to make good sense..


Only a standard Nvidia card with dvi or even vga output is required and that can be had for about $60. a dual dvi output card is less than $100 so one could have a 32 inch monitor with 3 windows and your current monitor set up for very easily..


cheers,
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

As SevenFX mentioned you can run quite a number of monitors. At work I have 3 on my desk I can work on 2 and just use one for monitoring; that setup would translate well to trading I think.

If you are purchasing a new monitor consider getting a widescreen. Running at 1680x1050 this gives plenty of screen real estate. 2 x 24" widescreens would give the equivalent of 4 x 17" monitors I reckon in terms of screen real estate.

You can also get software that will give you 4 virtual desktops. I use such software at work but the name of it escapes me (it is freeware though). This gives me 12 monitors in effect (4x3) and it is a cinch to swap between desktops. So if you do paid work and trade at the same time you might have one 'work' desktop and one 'trading' desktop.

Hopefully that gives some other ideas!

Cheers,

Richard.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Anyone else have have much of a different between screens?

Each setup of multipliable screens I have used I can never get the screens absolutely the same no matter the software / hardware / knobs tweeked or am I being to pedantic?
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

This is good stuff - some great options for multiple monitor set ups - love the TV screen/grids idea...can I get The Simpsons on part of the screen?

RichardE, when you are next at work can you get the name of that software for the virtual desktops?

Well done SevenFX, I knew this would be a good thread!
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

IFocus said:
Anyone else have have much of a different between screens?

Each setup of multipliable screens I have used I can never get the screens absolutely the same no matter the software / hardware / knobs tweeked or am I being to pedantic?
Click to expand...

Do you mean screen colours/contrast/ brightness etc? I reckon someone will be along soon with a solution for this.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Hi IFocus,

I have made sure that each monitor I run supports the same resolution at least. They all get run at that resolution. At work I have 2 19" monitors and a 17". They have all been set so that the bottom of each screen is at the same height. Because I run in the same resolution as I drag windows from one to the other I know they will fit and not need to be resized.

At home I have a 15.4" widescreen laptop and a 20" widescreen LCD. I have the 20" sitting above my laptop screen and find this very easy to use. Again they run the same resolution.

Last week we bought a new home desktop for the kids and that came with a 24" widescreen. Very nice! I might need to test it further myself before I let the kids use it

Cheers

Richard.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Timmy said:
love the TV screen/grids idea...can I get The Simpsons on part of the screen?

thread!
Click to expand...


Probably, depend on the tv you get. Most have picture in picture. Just check you can have an AV input as part of your Picture in Picture..

Alternatively, just get a tv card for your PC and you can use your PC as a PVR to boot!


cheers,
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

G'Day Timmy,

I missed your post last night, must have been entering mine at the same time. VirtuaWin is the name of the piece of software; just checking this morning, you can actually run 160 different desktops!

Here is the link http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

Cheers

Richard.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Thanks Richard will check that out.

And SevenFX - time for me to yell HELP!

Re the 3 monitor set up - I have gone down the route of buying a Matrox G200 card, it enables running of up to 4 monitors.

How do I install this card? I bought the card on eBay and it did not come with drivers, however I have got the drivers via the Matrox site on the web. How do I install the drivers? Is it right that I need to install the drivers first so that my PC recognises the card when I install it? I have already tried to install the new card but there is no display at all when I turn on the PC - the screens (all 3 of them now!) stay blank. So I switched back to the dual head card and took the new one out. So back to where I started!

So how do I set it up so that when I insert the new card my PC will fire up as normal except with 3 screens? Do I need to go into the BIOS - what is that and how do I get in? I tried to install the new driver but it recognised the existing dual head card and wanted to install drivers for that, can I tell it somehow to install drivers for the new card even though that new card is not in the PC?

I hope this is a clear explanation.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Hi all, there are other solutions to these things also for instance the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition which are connected to a DVI (of a fairly decent graphics card) and allows spanning or cloning of monitor real estate (BUT) the monitors need the same resolution (and at present can only support 4:3 formats)... Or purchase nearly any graphics card nowadays with dualhead capability and run any mix of format and resolution... FWIW I run LHS 4:3 @ 1280x1024 x32bit & RHS 16:9 (primary monitor) @ 1680x1050 x16bit which is nothing special at all nowadays but the difference in use was really something when upgrading from a single 4:3 monitor!
Regards,
Dave


BTW Timmy, Google Matrox 200
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Timmy said:
Re the 3 monitor set up - I have gone down the route of buying a Matrox G200 card, it enables running of up to 4 monitors.

How do I install this card? .
Click to expand...

Timmy, what was your old card...??? did you have a pci dual head card or was it a agp dual head like your g200 matrox like in this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrox_G200

Also what is your motherboard & model as it has to support the card and the speed the card runs at.

Also the bios is usually accessed by pressing the del or f1 key when the computer starts from cold (completely switched off) but be careful.....

SevenFX
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....


Hi SevenFX - old card is a Matrox G450 AGP dual head

This new card is a Matrox G200 Quad 32 MB PCI.

The mother board is an Asus a7m266

Any of that help?
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

Timmy said:
Hi SevenFX - old card is a Matrox G450 AGP dual head

This new card is a Matrox G200 Quad 32 MB PCI.

The mother board is an Asus a7m266

Any of that help?
Click to expand...

EDITED:
You must have a AGP slot if using the AGP version of the G450, and must configure the motherboard bios to use the PCI slot now(G200 card), B4 shutting it down and installing the pci card in pci slot (also removing the AGP card (G450))

You prob know to always shutdown everything b4 removing cards, and beware of static damage to cards.

SevenFX
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....


OK, can I just check I have the procedure correct -

1. Configure the BIOS to use the PCI slot - my understanding is I enter the BIOS at the start-up stage right?

2. Turn the pc off

3. remove the agp card, install the pci card

4. reboot computer
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....


Yes correct.

I was supprised you had the pci version. but if it's going into the (gererally) white slots, along side of other white slots the it's pci.
 
Re: How to Run Multiple Monitors....

OK - will give it a try now....I may be some time....
 
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