two monitors using a [motherboard graphics card] and a [PCI e graphics card with only one DVI port].

Joan M

Hello all, As soon as I was able to get it into my computer I bought a Matrox card with dual head in order to increase the productivity. Now I have a new computer and also I got a new matrox card with dual head. That computer came with an ATI card inside that now is not being used. One coworker has a Pentium 4 with the 915G chipset that has an integrated graphics card. I was thinking on adding that other graphics card there in order to be able to use them both. Do you think that this is possible? which things should I consider? PS: I would like to be able to have two separate monitors working with the same computer, like the effect I get with the Matrox Millenium P650 that I have in my computer. As always thank you in advance.

Sachin Pimpale

yes it is possible but you can view same thing on both monitor, am i right?

SP -- Bugs can neither be created nor be removed from software by a developer. They can only be converted from one form to another. The total number of bugs in the software always remain constant.

Joan M

No, I don't want to see the same on the two monitors... I would like to extend the windows desktop to the second monitor. In this way, you can have, for example, the MSDN in one monitor and the VC++ in the other one. This is intended to improve the productivity avoiding to minimize and maximize continuously... Thank you.

El Corazon

Joan Murt wrote:

One coworker has a Pentium 4 with the 915G chipset that has an integrated graphics card. I was thinking on adding that other graphics card there in order to be able to use them both.

This is VERY dependant on motherboard, but many (I won't say most, because although I have eval'd many, I can't even touch a decent percentage of 'all') motherboards will disable integrated graphics if you put in a graphics card (or worse, force you to disable it before it recognized the graphics card as a graphics card -- you can spend half a day before you realize that the motherboard if fighting you to not recognize the card). The other part is slot type. You can have any combination of PCIe + PCI just as you could have AGP+PCI, and now you can have dual PCIe in parallel integrated (SLI or CrossFire) or parallel independant (for more displays). Windows handles this fine, **IF** the hardware supports it. I don't mix brands because drivers tend to fight each other, but I know several people who have got multi-brand working in multi-card/multi-monitor integration. But you will make life easier with same-brand and same driver situations.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

Joan M

OK, after reading several notes from different people here, I've decided to buy a new card with 2 heads. Thank you.

El Corazon

Joan Murt wrote:

I've decided to buy a new card with 2 heads.

that is the easiest way to do it. Not always the cheapest if you have left over equipment, but if you count your hours into the equation, it looks better on paper to just get a 2 head graphics card.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

Joan M

Yes, it's a pity to throw hardware to the box of those old things that never are used again, but well, it happens so as you say about equations... it's better to spend time in other things... And that graphics card is very cheap so this is not a big deal, it was more related to the fact that I wanted to make it work... :sigh:

Dan Neely

Joan Murt wrote:

Yes, it's a pity to throw hardware to the box of those old things that never are used again,

then again you never know what'll come out of that box to be used again someday. Last weekend the cheap mobo with onboard gfx I was using for my spare box died. I had an available replacement, but it didn't have onboard gfx. Rather than spend $30 on a new cheap PCIe card, I installed a PCI matrox card from a 1997 vintage P1. I'd originally intended to ebay the mobo I used but probably wouldn't get more than $80 for it if that, a good 939 mobo with onboard gfx would be ~$70 so the antique card was the cheapest option. For normal use that box just crunches einstien@home so it doesn't need a highend gfx card, and if my main box goes down I can borrow the card in it until I rebuild.

-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.

Joan M

Yes, that's the main idea on having that box in the darkest part of our office, sometimes it's handy, but rarely and it becomes easily forgotten...

dpsingh_1

I dont think you can use the integrated and discrete card at the same time. if you really wanted to Extend you desktop to second display why dont you just use intergrated card and attach a second display via some ADD card.