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How can I connect two monitors to my laptop?

How do you connect two monitors to a laptop?

  • Is it possible to use two external monitors with a laptop? If yes, what do you need to do that?

  • Answer:

    Please specify which laptop you are referring to or if you are looking for a laptop with this potential. I will answer this question based on any laptop. The only way I know it can be done is the laptop and one monitor as separate dual screens. The laptop would need to have dual outputs; I've never seen outputs beyond one analog, one digital directly from the laptop. It would be nice if there were two digital (DVI & HDMI for example). You could also look for a docking station for your laptop but not all laptops have a docking station tailored for them. Lenovo, Dell and Toshiba are some that do make docking stations for some of their models. I haven't looking at docking stations in awhile but I would imagine they would come with dual outputs now as graphics adapters on laptops are now powerful enough to run two, and some could run three monitors. Your last option is this piece of USB to VGA hardware, however be careful because I've read the resolution isn't the best. http://amzn.to/fCHNJ4

Steven Olsen at Quora Visit the source

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Assuming your laptop is like most and only has a single monitor output, then what you need depends whether you want the two monitors to show exact copies of the same thing, or whether you want them to show different things (such as, for example, the left- and right-bits of a giant desktop.) If you want the screens to be copies of each other, for example, for a presentation, you need what's called a "splitter". Exactly what sort you want depends on what sort of output connector your laptop has - different common ones are called VGA, or DVI, or HDMI. If you want the screens to show different stuff, you want what's known as an "external video card". These things normally plug into a USB port, and then allow you to put an extra screen onto your machine. Different operating systems - Linux, MacOS, Windows - then have different ways of configuring up those two (or three if you're also using the built-in thing) screens to sit to the left or right of each other.

Mark Harrison

I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro that has a 28" 4K monitor attached using mini-DisplayPort (aka miniDP), and a 21" 1080P monitor attached using the HDMI port.

Paul Tomblin

VGA will only mirror, it cannot extend your desktop.  Instead, you will have to buy a USB video card if you want an extended desktop. We sell IOGear and they have some decent stuff.  I think this would solve your problem, just forget about watching 1080p movies or playing WOW. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812225007

Joshua Sutinen

You can buy a simple graphics card splitter (either VGA, HDMI, or whatever you use). Most PCs will allow you to use the two monitors as one big monitor with input from a single graphics card.  You can also buy a second graphic card and use each monitor with a separate graphics card.

Konstantinos Konstantinides

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