Dual screaning on a laptop?

[Kanai]

So i just got a brand new 17" widescrean HP laptop with a Nvidia graphics card and i was wondering if it is possible to dual screan it with my old desktop moitor. I have dualscreaned on desktops before, but never using laptops. My current software on my laptop does not seem to support it, so my inital impression is no, I cannot. However im not giving up all hope yet

Any feedback appreciated

[Lawls]

You can if you have 2 DVI or VGA ports (or a mix) on your laptop. You can't if it only has 1 port, though. My laptop screen crapped out, so I hooked up a desktop monitor to it and it worked fine, so I'd assume if it just had 2 ports for a monitor, you can theoretically dual screen.

Unless I misread that whole thing. Are you using your desktop, and want to extend it to your laptop screen, or your laptop to your desktop? The first one is easy, the second isn't so much since most laptops not custom built don't have dual monitor support.

[dietvanillapepsi]

Yeah, please clarify if you want to hook up one or two monitors to the laptop. If you only want one monitor (in addition to the laptop monitor) then just plug in that badboy. You might have to go into the system preferences and let the computer know that you are using two screens.

If you want to hook up two monitors to your laptop then you need to get a graphics card with two inputs. Another alternative is to have the second monitor plug into a PC card adaptor. They cost around $200 if I recall correctly. (I heard the quality is somewhat diminished if you go through a PC card but you might not care about that.

[Lbelle]

I dual screen with my laptop. My dickhead friends blew up my old computer, so I still have my nice flatscreen monitor, but not the computer.

All I did was hook the monitor up to the thing in the back of my laptop and changed some settings, and wala! Takes like two minutes

[Kanai]

Sweet, thanks.

(yeah i wanted to use my laptop screan and one other flat lcd in addition to that)

[Kooldac]

Once you go duel screen, everything else just seems like shit.

[dietvanillapepsi]

One last bit of advice from someone who dual screens at work but has a 30" flat panel for working at home: Dual screening is nice and all but it is better to get a bigger monitor if you can.

[makojr]

Once you go duel screen, everything else just seems like shit.

aint that the truth. comes in real handy when you using photoshop. I just toss all the palalets (sp?) on the other monitor to free up work space.

dual screen since '03 for me :D

[Lbelle]

How do I have one wallpaper on one screen and another wallpaper on the other?

[royze]

How do I have one wallpaper on one screen and another wallpaper on the other?

ghetto advice :
copy both of the images, paste them next to each other in photoshop and make it as wide as it goes into the other monitor...lol

[Lbelle]

ahhhh that's actually really smart! Thanks

[Lbelle]

Ok what you have to do if you want to do it the ghetto way is actually make the picture, and then set it to tile (instead of center or stretch). The image on the left screen is still a little fucked up, but nevertheless still looks kinda cool.

[Kanai]

Do you have nvidia video card? if so there is an option in the drivers to set different backgrounds.

[Lbelle]

Uhm I'm not really sure what video card I have

[Kanai]

try downloading a program called "ultramon" if you dont have nvidia drivers

[Krandor]

Right Clicking your desktop, and going to Properties > Settings should tell you what make you have.