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Your first and probably most common option for a
desktop system is to buy a multi-port video card. These cards generally have a
DVI and a VGA port, both of which can be hooked to any monitor with the use of
adapters. These cards can either be PCI, PCI-Express, or AGP-compatible.
Generally speaking, the drivers for multi-monitor support come with the card.
Another desktop option is to buy multiple video
cards and put them in your system. As far as we can tell, this only works so
long as the chipsets are the same and each card uses a different type of slot
(i.e., an ATi PCI card and an ATi AGP card.) Conceivably you could use two
two-port cards, giving you a total of four monitors. This is a good way to go if
you want to go to the trouble of matching everything up.
These solutions are all well and good for the
desktop user, you say, but what about my laptop? Well, don’t worry, there are
options for notebooks as well. Probably your best option is to spring for the
VTBook DVI/VGA Dual Display Video PCMCIA Card. It’s a bit pricey, but it’s the
only card like it on the market. The VTBook gives you an additional DVI-out port
on your computer, which can be plugged into a high-def display. If you crave
even more monitor madness, you can buy a VTBook Dualhead Cable, which splits the
out port, giving you yet another monitor. With this setup, you could have up to
four monitors (your laptop screen, the laptop out port, and the two VTBook
ports).
The last, and probably most expensive method to
add multiple monitors to your laptop is to buy a PCMCIA to PCI card.
Realistically, this $1000-plus item is for more specialty PCI cards that aren’t
available in PCMCIA version, but if you have an amazing and absolutely necessary
PCI or PCI Express video card that you want to use with your laptop, this is the
solution for you. As far as I can tell, I have only found one such adapter, made
by Magma.
I’m sure that somewhere there is some engineer
dreaming up other ways to add multiple monitors to computers, but for now, these
are the most common and most feasible options I know of. Now go to, and enjoy
the greater productivity of multiple monitors.
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