Dual Monitors=Goodness!

muddocktormuddocktor
edited September 2007 in Hardware
I just went to Sam's Club today to spend some of my safety bonus card on goodies and found me a Samsung Synchmaster 245B 24" wide screen flat panel monitor, which I picked up for around $470 plus tax. I went and hooked it up via the dvi cable to my main rig and left my older Samsung 913T connected with the analog cable through my kvm switch and then started playing with the setup. I now have the vid card set up to span horizontally across both monitors and have been loving the extra real estate. The new monitor supports 1920 X 1200 max resolution and even at that setting I find that it is easy to read, unlike the 17" widescreen panel on my laptop at that resolution and it seems that windows (or nVidia's drivers at least) are smart enough to know that the secondary 19" monitor can't run at that resolution and kept it set at 1280 X 1024.

It sure makes it nice to have 2 monitors when you are comparing stuff or working on a couple of things at the same time. I can see that I will get spoiled to this in a hurry. :D And the 24" panel is so easy to read and I am just loving all the extra real estate it gives over my old 19".:cool:

Comments

  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited September 2007
    Not to hijack your thread muddocktor but I have a related question. I have my plasma TV hooked up to my Vid card via a DVI>HDMI cable which goes to a HDMI switch by the TV. It is a pain to set up the TV as a secondary display. I have to have the switch set for the TV then go through all the settings, resolution, clone etc. I have had it displaying the desktop but without the taskbar??? but whenever I turn the switch to TV, the PC looses all the settings. This means I have to set it all up everytime I want to use the TV through the PC. All the above using ultramon.
    Does anybody know of a prog that will let me set up the TV display and remember its settings so I switch the HDMI switch and get the display up straight away?
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited September 2007
    What video card are you using, bothered? Is it ATI or nVidia? That information might help out figuring a way for your settings to be saved.

    EDIT: Also, my secondary monitor doesn't show the taskbar on the bottom, just my primary display. When I first added the 24" monitor to my system it set the new monitor up as secondary and I had to reset it as the primary display and reboot for the taskbar to appear on my new monitor.
  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited September 2007
    I'm using a Nvidia 8800GS.
    I'm not really bothered about the taskbar as I can start whatever through desktop icons anyway.
    Thanks.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited September 2007
    Well, with ATI, you plug the television in, and set the video card to output on AVIVO, and it turns the TV into a monitor using a smart resolution calculator and sets it to clone, or extend. Dunno about Nvidia.
  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited September 2007
    The Nvidia does a similar thing. 'Problem' is if I switch the HDMI switch to TV then back to PC there is no display until I go back to Nvidia control panel and set it up again. That in itself isn't a big deal but I'd like to just switch between TV and PC without having to start again every time.
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited September 2007
    bothered wrote:
    The Nvidia does a similar thing. 'Problem' is if I switch the HDMI switch to TV then back to PC there is no display until I go back to Nvidia control panel and set it up again. That in itself isn't a big deal but I'd like to just switch between TV and PC without having to start again every time.

    Can you not lose the hdmi swich, have your telly and monitor both connected via DVI (at the same time) and set your display to 'clone'? That way the same display is output to your telly and your monitor, and you can just switch off whichever one you're not using.

    Or have I misunderstood the problem?
  • Buddha16Buddha16 Austin, Tx Member
    edited September 2007
    i use Ultramon to extend the taskbar onto my secondary display.:)
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited September 2007
    I <3 Ultramon. Great App--use it at work.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    Also <3 for Ultramon here as well.
  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited September 2007
    deicist wrote:
    Can you not lose the hdmi swich, have your telly and monitor both connected via DVI (at the same time) and set your display to 'clone'? That way the same display is output to your telly and your monitor, and you can just switch off whichever one you're not using.

    Or have I misunderstood the problem?

    I could, but I went to a fair bit of trouble getting it and I believe it gives a better picture (though I may be wrong)
    The prog I was using, that doesn't work, was ultramon.
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