Adding Two External Monitors to A Laptop

by Unknown 02:29 0 comments

Any Windows laptop will support two screens – at least, I’ve never heard of one that won’t. Supporting three screens can be just as easy, or much trickier. It depends on the laptop, the graphics card (or integrated graphics), the graphics drivers, and perhaps the amount of memory available. There’s no easy way to tell in advance. However, if you search online for your exact laptop, you may find that someone has already tried it, and this is probably the best guidance you can get.

Some laptops will support two external monitors if you can find a way of plugging them in. For example, you could plug one into an HDMI port and the second into a VGA port. This is not quite as good as using two HDMI ports because HDMI and VGA are different video standards. The two screens may have slightly different colour renderings, or other differences (brightness, contrast etc), which could be annoying.

Alternatively, if your laptop has a DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort, you can buy a splitter or multi-monitor hub that will drive two or three screens. These are usually used to “clone” screens, but Windows should be able to set up an extended desktop that bridges two or more screens.

Using USB

If your laptop only has one video port, you can use a USB display adaptor instead. Amazon searches find lots of examples, none of which I’ve ever used. From a position of ignorance, I looked for better-known brands such as Plugable, Kensington and Climax Digital, but readers with experience of multi-monitor laptops are welcome to suggest alternatives below.

I expect you will need an adaptor that includes an external graphics card. One example is the Plugable UGA USB 2.0 to DVI/VGA/HDMI Adaptor, which costs $37.95. (Although the spec says it supports Windows and Linux, it is clear from the Amazon comments than Mac OS X owners are also using it.) Alternatives include the ClimaxDigital USB 3.0/2.0 to DVI, VGA or HDMI Adaptor ($29.99), thePlugable USB 2.0 to VGA/DVI/HDMI Video Graphics Adaptor Card ($42.95) and the Kensington Universal Multi-Display Adaptor ($65.99). You need one adaptor per USB monitor.

Although an external graphics card will usually solve the three-screens problem, there may be limitations. The bulk of the work is still done by the laptop’s processor, which can mean that everything else slows down. The extra screen may not be fast enough for gaming, but it should be fine for normal office purposes, such as email or news feeds.

You will generally get better results with USB 3 adaptors, because USB 3 is about ten times faster than USB 2. However, it shouldn’t make much, if any, visible difference if you’re only driving one extra screen – see some of the YouTube demos mentioned below.

Hub or dock

You don’t say whether you move your laptop around, though I assume you do. If you don’t, it’s a very bad idea to use a laptop for work. You should replace it with a desktop PC, which provides more power for less money, is easier to expand or repair, and – most important of all – has much better ergonomics. With a standard laptop, it is impossible get both the screen and the keyboard in their optimum ergonomic positions without adding either a separate keyboard or a separate screen.

The other problem with connecting multiple screens to a laptop is that you have to unplug them all when you take the laptop out of the office, and plug them all back in when you return. The solution is to use a docking station or a USB hub. For ergonomic reasons, I’d recommend plugging an external keyboard and mouse into the hub, as well as your two screens. That way, you will only have to plug one USB cable into your laptop to make everything work.

For example, you could buy a Plugable UD-3900 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Universal Docking Station ($99.95), and use two external monitors via its two video ports: HDMI and DVI/VGA. Your laptop would provide the third screen. The UD-3900 is a USB 3 hub, but it will work with USB 2 ports on Windows laptops and tablets; it just won’t be as quick.

This particular range seems to be popular with Microsoft Surface Pro owners(which is how I know about it), but there are no doubt many alternatives.

Plugable has a short YouTube video that shows an 8in Windows tablet – a Dell Venue 8 Pro, which only has a microUSB 2 port – working as a desktop PC with four monitors, an external keyboard and mouse. This demo uses a Plugable UD-3000 hub.

Plugable’s founder Bernie Thompson has also produced YouTube videos showing a multi-port USB 3.0 hub running seven monitors from a Windows 7 laptop and, more recently, running 14 monitors from one tiny Windows 8.1 PC, a Core i3-based Intel NUC. The increase came from changes in the DisplayLink technology used by Plugable and other suppliers, not from any changes in Windows.

A hub is obviously not the cheapest option, in hardware terms. However, it is a lot cheaper than a course of physiotherapy. And, sad to say, I have had more than one experience of that.