Question about Dual Monitor Setup 2

[Ucime]

Hello,

I want to be able to do a dual monitor setup on my pc. Before I spend the money I want to make sure I'm on the right path.

The PC is using a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 motherboard, AMD Athlon XP 2700 CPU, ATI Radeon 7500 video card and 1GB of memory.

I'm just doing programming on the PC (no gaming) so I don't care about real high performance like gamers need. I just find that as I have more and more windows open I'd like to have more screen real estate to see them.

There is only one AGP slot so I was just planning on buying a PCI video card for the 2nd monitor.

Are there any concerns/issues with installing a 2nd video card on this configuration?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[vacunita]

No need to buy a new video card, when your current one is more than capable if driving a secondary monitor out of its second port.

According to this review:

http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-cards/ati-radeon-7500/4505-8902_7-7425583.html

You would just need to plug in your monitor to whichever port you aren't using. and then through the driver control panel. adjust your settings to extend your desktop.

----------------------------------
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.

 

[Ucime]

vacunita,

Thanks for your reply. It would be great if I could do that but the card I have does NOT have two video ports. It just has a DVI-I connector and no VGA connector as the review states.

There must be different 'models' of the 7500.

Thanks again!

 

[vacunita]

Interesting, no other port at all? Every review, and Manual that I can find states that it has 3 ports. DVI, VGA and S-Video.

Even the ATI website itself says so:

http://ati.de/products/radeon7500/radeon7500/specs.html

Anyway, going back to your original question:
You should have minimal hassle. Although when you first plug in the new card it might override the other one.

After that its a matter of installing the adequate drivers for it, and windows should add an extend my desktop option to the Settings dialog.

The only other concern would be power. Can your PSU handle both video cards?



----------------------------------
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.

 

[vacunita]

Something I forgot to mention, is if you are already going out to buy a new card, I would buy one that can drive 2 monitors on its own. You can get a good card with quite a bit of ram for 30 or 40 bucks. And you can replace your current ATI Radeon.

----------------------------------
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.

 

[Ucime]

My bad about the card. It's a 7500 All-in-Wonder card.

I'd include a picture of it but I can't figure out how to do it. How did you include a picture in your post?

Anyway, here's a link to a card like it on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-All-In-Wond...ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

I think my PSU should be able to handle it. It's 550W

Thanks again for your response.

 

[vacunita]

To include a pic you need to use an image tag, and a link to the picture. The picture must be hosted on a publicly available server on the internet. In my case I just used a pic I found from Google, copied the link and pasted it in an image tag:

[ignore]

[/ignore]
(How I got it to not render the image in the tag I leave for you to find out)

Ahh I see, a different card altogether.

Anyway, Since I suspect you want to keep the TV tuner capability, then a new PCI card would be the better choice.
And yes your PSU seems to be good enough to handle the extra card.

----------------------------------
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.

 

[Ucime]

Oooooh, a quiz. I love it. Good way to start out Monday morning.

Thanks.

 

[felixc]

If you want to keep the tuner and have 2 monitors, you may want to get an AIW9600. It has the video in-out, and two VGA connectors. Analog VGAs though.

If not, like Vacunita says, a more recent card with 2 DVI outs would do better than two separate video cards.

 

[felixc]

If you want to keep the tuner and have 2 monitors, you may want to get an AIW9600. It has the video in-out, and two VGA connectors. Analog VGAs though.

If not, like Vacunita says, a more recent card with 2 DVI outs would do better than two separate video cards.

 

[wahnula]

How I got it to not render the image in the tag I leave for you to find out

Enough time has passed, what's the answer??? I know how to insert an image in a post, but have no clue how you got the tag to show! I even studied the page source, no help...

I am not a programmer, but do know basic HTML.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[vacunita]

Enough time has passed, what's the answer??? I know how to insert an image in a post, but have no clue how you got the tag to show! I even studied the page source, no help...

I am not a programmer, but do know basic HTML.

Tony

Users helping Users...

O.K. here goes. ready...

You use "ignore" tags.

[ignore][ignore]

[/ignore][/ignore]

Also you might want to click on the Process TGML link under the reply box for all the information you need on TGML tags you can use to format your messages here.



----------------------------------
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.

 

[wahnula]

LOL good one thanks!

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[wahnula]

Also you might want to click on the Process TGML link under the reply box

So, conversely, this is another way to show the tags...simply de-select "Process TGML" and the tags will be visible.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[vacunita]

Nut that will ignore everything. so in case you just want to ignore only one tag and not everything in the text box you can use the tags.



----------------------------------
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]

If all you have is a DVI port you just need to buy a DVI to dual VGA or DVI to dual DVI splitter cable. They're arent very expensive, in fact here is 10 of them on Ebay for $33

That's the way I do all my dual monitors in my office.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[vacunita]

No offense, but splitting the video will only give you a copy of of the same thing in both monitors. That hardly equates to "more space to put windows"

I doubt very much the video card would pickup the second monitor through a split cable.

----------------------------------
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]

No offense, but splitting the video will only give you a copy of of the same thing in both monitors. That hardly equates to "more space to put windows"

I doubt very much the video card would pickup the second monitor through a split cable.

Apparently you've never done it. But I have 30 PCs on my networking doing EXACTLY this and it works fine. I am using it as we speak, I have two 19" LCD's on one DVI with a splitter, a 512mb PCIe ATI Radeon x1300. Obviously it will split the video RAM so higher is better, but even a 128mb card will work just fine. If you want pictures, I just happen to bring my camera to work and have 5 PCs sitting here in my office with this exact set up I can take pictures of.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[vacunita]

You are right I've never tried it before simply because it counter intuitive, however I find it very interesting. So your video card actually picks up the second monitor from the splitter?

You can actually extend the desktop to the other monitor instead of just cloning it?

----------------------------------
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]

I don't see how it is counter intuitive, it works perfect. I have absolutely no issues at all. Like I said I have 30+ PCs doing exactly this and not one complaint after 3 years of doing this. Here is my exact PC, I had to take it apart for the pic but this is it!

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!