Adding an additional monitor to my PC?

[marvelous1]

Hey people

First of all apologies if this is in the wrong section, I was a little confused to where to create a ew topic and thought this would be the best place but mods please remove if you feel necessary.

I was hoping someone could offer me a little support regarding trying to add my new tv/monitor as my secondary monitor to my pc, ideally what I want is when you add a second monitor to your laptop as an extended monitor that is what I require.

Is this possible? If so how? Would I need to purchase an additional graphioc card for my pc? Could you recommend me one? Or could I purchase something like a vga splitter which I would plug in the back of my vga slot and it would have two female vga connections?

Thank you.

 

[kjv1611]

Splitter should work for basic needs. Performance usually is the only thing that will vary.

If you have onboard graphics, and you've got a desktop, then it'd be worth going ahead and getting a monitor with dual outs anyway... it won't cost much more anyhow.

What sort of system do you have? Custom built, Dell, HP, etc?

What are your other system specifics? OS, graphics card, processor, etc....

Just a side note, not hardware. I found this interesting in Windows 7. There appears to be an option right in the start menu to one-click get you to change your output from monitor to projector if so needed. That's purty intesting to me.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[vacunita]

As kvj1611 points out a splitter would work for most basic needs (picture quality may not be the best though), however depending on what video card you have you may or may not needed it.

If you are wanting to add a TV then you might want to look into other video outputs such as HDMI or S-video for a better picture instead of just VGA depending again on what your video card can handle and what your TV can receive, or if you are willing to go out and spend on a new card.

Basically I would at the least try for an S-Video connection. If possible an HDMI.

With that said, we'd need to know what kind of PC you have (make, model, video card) so we can offer some more specific advice.






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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Adding to what these other guys have said, are you trying to add your TV to your PC as a DVI, VGA, HDMI, or S-Video? What video output do you have on your one monitor now? There are several options and it really depends on how you're set up now and what video card you have installed currently on your PC.

As the others have said, getting or having a decent DVI video card and splitting it, either dual DVI or dual VGA would probably be ideal. But that assumes you are using a DVI or VGA for both your monitor and TV. So if your TV is only DVI and monitor is only VGA, it might be a little more difficult with a splitter. Unless your video card has one DVI and one VGA spot.

Your possibilities are limitless, but the bottom line is yes it will work you just need the proper video card.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[marvelous1]

Thanks for your suggestions guys, I'm thinking of investing in a hdmi pci card as my tv/monitor has a hd connection.

So all I need to do is add this pci card to my motherboard and then buy a hdmi cable? and connect the cable from the pc to the tv? the only query I have regarding this is that would my pc sound also come out of my tv? That is ideal for me. I know I could have gone down the easy route of getting a vga connection for my pc but the hdmi graphics will be better and I might get sound.

 

[vacunita]

No sound unless you connect your sound card to your Tv as well though an HDMI cable. Video cards are not usually audio enabled. Just plain video.

As for cards, I'm sure you mean PCI-E not PCI. You'd be hard pressed to find a decent PCI video card these days.



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[kjv1611]

Does your computer have a PCI Express x16 slot available? If so, your best money spent will be a video card that supports monitor out and hdmi out....

So if all that is true (since you've not told us, we have to guess):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rk=False&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=RATING

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[marvelous1]

Sorry but how do I find out if my computer has pci e or pci slots? The motherboard is only about 2/3 years old and is amd core duo 2.2 ghz.

Update: I just looked at something i bought recently for my pc, it was an Edimax 802.11g Wireless PCI Card meaning I wont have a pci e slot

 

[vacunita]

You can very likely have both. PCI and PCI-E.
The easiest way to find out is by opening up the PC and looking at the motherboard.

These are the different types of PCI and PCI-E ports:

PCI Express slots (from top to bottom: x4, x16, x1 and x16), compared to a traditional 32-bit PCI slot (bottom)

Depending on what type of port you have, you'll have to look for a video card to match it.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[marvelous1]

Thanks, I opened up my computer and took the following picture:

http://i33.tinypic.com/33p4ndd.jpg

Not sure if it's a PCI - E slot

I want to buy the following:

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HIS-467_1H

Do you think its the same pci e slot?

 

[marvelous1]

EDIT* Just saw your picture, I believe I have a spare PCI e 16 spare slot or am I incorrect?

I've seen the above card on ebay and I asked the guy about it and he told me

'the card has built in 7.1ch high def sound card, which will do through the hdmi port.'

So that means the sound will come through the hdmi cable and I dont need to hook up the speakers as well.

 

[kjv1611]

The only other (slight) possibility is that it's a VGA port. But given your CPU and the age of the system, I'd say it's a PCI Express X16 slot.

Radeon cards are generally the best for video/tv type stuff anyway, so that should be an okay card, especially if you get a good deal on it. It's also nice that it has both VGA and DVI, in my opinion, in case you have one monitor that now supports one, but later get a monitor that supports the other.

Here's a review on that specific card if you want to look at it:

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/VGA/HIS_HD4670_Turbo/index.htm

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[cdogg]

This is a good card for the price (ATI Radeon HD 4650):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121340

I've installed one of these recently for a customer. The sound is transferred over the HDMI cable, but only when playing multimedia I've discovered. There might be a way to transfer all sounds over the HDMI connection, but I didn't dig that far. Even though this card has three ports, you can only use two at a time.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[kjv1611]

Hmm, plays only multimedia audio? I'd be curious as to whether you just have to change the audio hardware options in order to get all audio to go over HDMI. I'm guessing it uses its own built-in sound card, perhaps?

Well, I've not a reason yet to play with HDMI personally yet anyway. Maybe one day, we'll finally get there.. we'll be viewing 1080p stuff at my house maybe when the new UHDV standard is out.



--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[vacunita]

Yeah the green one looks to be a PCI-E x16 slot. The Yellow one a PCI-E x1.

I really can't say much about the audio through the video cards, never had one that would do that.

But I guess they could possibly include if not a complete sound card, just a audio port that connects to an existing HD sound card.

My setup right now has my NVidia card outputs via S-Video to my TV, and my Soundblaster card outputs audio to my home theater.




----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.