Dual Display Setup....Please Help

[coryburgess]

I design, sale & install home theater systems.

I have a client with a Dell PC, Desktop. The Video Card has Two DVI outputs and a S-Video Ooutput.

They want the PC to be connected to both the AV System and the desktop monitor.

IS it possible to do this the same way a laptop does? So that you can see the complete desktop on both screens, I know on my laptop when I connect an external display, it asks if I want to have same on both.

We alreay have an S-video line ran, but I'd rather use one of the DVI's if its possible.

Right now, I can get the the HOme Theater Display to show the desktop suing the S-Video Cable, BUT the destop 22" LCD goes blank and won't come back on until I restart the PC.

Any suggestions. No I don't know what Video Card it is.

THanks, Cory

 

[cmashwin]

first off, u gotta know what card it is.. Check it out on the systems page.. And I think by default only ONE display is turned on... If u wanna get it to come the same on both monitors, then u gotta set it to "clone mode" (if its nvidia)..

 

[coryburgess]

Okay, I will check that out. Any other thoughts

 

[dg6464]

Hey Coryburgess,

The last poster is correct; with NVIDIA equipment you must set the display type to clone-mode, and that will copy the "desktop" to both DVI outputs. The important part is to set the resolution correctly on both outputs (so that the home-theatre supports the resolution going out to it, as the different aspect ratio's of standard PC resolutions can sometimes not be shown on certain televisions). If you give us more information about the video card we hopefully can help you a bit more; or find a step-by-step guide for you (there are tons out there)

Best of luck,

dg6464

 

[coryburgess]

Okay, thanks, I am going to try and find out.

 

[coryburgess]

What is the easiest way to find out what video card is included.

I may just call the client and see if he can find it for me, since he lives an 90 minutes from my office.

 

[jrnyfan]

easiest way? have him/her pull up the device manager in system properties and then click on display adapter.

you can access system properties by going Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware and then click on the Device Manager Tab and then double click on Display Adapters (or hit windows key + Pause/Break and then Hardware tab)

 

[cjl]

Or just go to run, type in "dxdiag," and go to the "video" tab in the window that pops up.