John’s Tech Blog for Lawyers

This post was originally written in reponse to a question posed in the TechnoLawyer newsletter. You can visit TechnoLawyer at http://technolawyer.com.

Here is how to get a third monitor working on your system if you have a special “dual head” card and an on board display connector.

Generally, Windows will recognize all attached hardware. But, when dual head cards are installed, the installation software the came with the card will uninstall all other drivers so that the new card will be the sole display source, disabling the onboard display connector.

To get all the display connectors working properly, you should first ensure that the bios is properly set up. Before starting this procedure, make sure that your bios is updated to the lastest version. If not, the updated bios can also be downloaded on the support page for your particular computer.

Once the bios is updated to the latest version, get into the bios configuration by rebooting your computer and pressing the designated key as soon as the screen starts up. You will likely see a prompt for this, but with today’s fast processors, it goes away quickly. I usually turn off the computer, turn it on and start taping the delete key (on my compuer) until the bios comes up. In the bios configuration, you will be able to enable or disable the onboard video port. Make sure it is enabled, save the changes, exit the bios, and restart the computer.

Now open up Windows and go to the control panel. Under Add/Remove software, remove ALL of your graphics drivers. Once they are installed, make sure that you have a monitor connected to the onboard video port and reboot the system.

Windows will open up in VGA mode, it will notify you that it found new hardware, and it will ask you to install a proper driver. Instead of installing all of the software for the video card, simply direct the installer to the location of the driver for which it is asking . Use your CD for your dual head card, and your system should have the driver for the onboard display connector. The system should install all of the proper software based on the .inf file in the directory where the driver is located.

If the system does not install both drivers at the same time, go to the control panel, choose add/remove hardware, and install the second driver. Reboot, and you should have all three monitors displaying the same information. At this point, you can install from the dual head card software disk, or from the manufacturer’s support Web site, the configuration applet that allows you to rotate, and configure the screens on each of the video card ports.

I love my multiple monitors (I use Linux instead of Windows, but the result is similar), but they do take some time to configure properly. You may need to visit the web site for your computer and for your dual head video card. I always recommend downloading the latest driver from the chip manufacturer instead of using the one that comes with the card. That way, you will be using the latest driver, and one that is not watered down with a bunch of other memory-hogging, but often useless apps.