Hey everyone,
I have an Acer Aspire 5742 i3 6GB RAM laptop. I would like to connect two monitors to this simultaneously so i can dual screen and was trying to establish the best way to do this. Obviously i could just connect one monitor and then use the laptop screen as the 2nd one but it's quite small (15.6") so would rather purchase two identical monitors to sit side by side. I have seen a number of dual and triple display devices (matrox seeming to be the most prominent) but have read mixed reviews about them. FYI I do not play games on this system it is used exclusively for work (and messing around on the internet), I am a web developer so do lots of programming and image editing in Photoshop. As a result my questions are (!):
1) My laptop has one HDMI out and one VGA out, do these output the same screen or can you in theory use these to multi display? Eg can i plug one monitor via VGA and one via HDMI and get dual screen (not cloned) across these (presumably one would then be mirrored on the laptop screen which is fine)? Obviously this isn't ideal as the quality will be different (VGA vs HDMI) but it might be a simple option.
2) As I have an HDMI port I would ideally like to get full HD monitors and connect to them using HDMI so the quality is as good as possible. Looking at the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/) it seems to connect via VGA from laptop to GPU then via DVI to the monitors. I'm slightly confused as surely if you connect via VGA to the Matrox then presumably it can't output full HD to the monitors as surely this information isn't outputted via VGA? Assuming this is correct is there any way of having dual HD monitors and will this make much difference?
3) Am I right in thinking with a Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition you get the two screens you connect PLUS a third different screen on the actual laptop display (this isn't essential for me, i was just wondering!)
4) Do you have to restart the computer when switching from dual screen via the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition to just using the laptop screen on it's own or can you just plug/unplug while the machine is on?
5) Once it's setup do the multiscreens connected to the Matrox function in a similar way to having dual monitors straight from windows, or are there any particular differences?
5) Is there a better way of doing what i'm trying to achieve?
Thanks so much for your help, it really is greatly appreciated!
Dave
I have an Acer Aspire 5742 i3 6GB RAM laptop. I would like to connect two monitors to this simultaneously so i can dual screen and was trying to establish the best way to do this. Obviously i could just connect one monitor and then use the laptop screen as the 2nd one but it's quite small (15.6") so would rather purchase two identical monitors to sit side by side. I have seen a number of dual and triple display devices (matrox seeming to be the most prominent) but have read mixed reviews about them. FYI I do not play games on this system it is used exclusively for work (and messing around on the internet), I am a web developer so do lots of programming and image editing in Photoshop. As a result my questions are (!):
1) My laptop has one HDMI out and one VGA out, do these output the same screen or can you in theory use these to multi display? Eg can i plug one monitor via VGA and one via HDMI and get dual screen (not cloned) across these (presumably one would then be mirrored on the laptop screen which is fine)? Obviously this isn't ideal as the quality will be different (VGA vs HDMI) but it might be a simple option.
2) As I have an HDMI port I would ideally like to get full HD monitors and connect to them using HDMI so the quality is as good as possible. Looking at the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/) it seems to connect via VGA from laptop to GPU then via DVI to the monitors. I'm slightly confused as surely if you connect via VGA to the Matrox then presumably it can't output full HD to the monitors as surely this information isn't outputted via VGA? Assuming this is correct is there any way of having dual HD monitors and will this make much difference?
3) Am I right in thinking with a Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition you get the two screens you connect PLUS a third different screen on the actual laptop display (this isn't essential for me, i was just wondering!)
4) Do you have to restart the computer when switching from dual screen via the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition to just using the laptop screen on it's own or can you just plug/unplug while the machine is on?
5) Once it's setup do the multiscreens connected to the Matrox function in a similar way to having dual monitors straight from windows, or are there any particular differences?
5) Is there a better way of doing what i'm trying to achieve?
Thanks so much for your help, it really is greatly appreciated!
Dave
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