Do the Acer Aspire One netbooks support desktop spanning across two displays when connected to an external monitor?
May 24, 2010 7:11 PM Subscribe
Do the Acer Aspire One netbooks support desktop spanning across two displays when connected to an external monitor?
Heavy googling didn't turn up a straight answer so I figured this would be an easy one for the hive. I'm about to buy one of these and I want to be able to hook it up to a proper monitor while at home and make use of a second display. Does the video hardware/driver support using the laptop screen and external VGA at the same time? If so, what's the highest resolution available on the external port? OS will be Windows XP or 7, external display will be 4:3 ratio.
Heavy googling didn't turn up a straight answer so I figured this would be an easy one for the hive. I'm about to buy one of these and I want to be able to hook it up to a proper monitor while at home and make use of a second display. Does the video hardware/driver support using the laptop screen and external VGA at the same time? If so, what's the highest resolution available on the external port? OS will be Windows XP or 7, external display will be 4:3 ratio.
Best answer: My Aspire One is capable of running a 17" external VGA monitor at 1280x1024, although it does have its similar struggles with flash and video output when done so. Throwing a more static Excel or Notepad window over there works fine.
posted by msbutah at 7:55 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by msbutah at 7:55 PM on May 24, 2010
I have one (Acer Aspire One D250 1371) w/ Win 7 starter and have hooked it up to external monitor (24") and it does support display on both monitors simultaneously, but not a true dual monitor set up, and whether the external monitor is used alone or with the built in, it will not show any resolution other than 1024x600 or 800x600.
posted by batikrose at 7:58 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by batikrose at 7:58 PM on May 24, 2010
this "may" be a win 7 starter issue ... i dont know ... win 7 starter is a severely crippled version of Win7. I added a Ubuntu to dual boot, and have not tried external monitor on it ...
posted by batikrose at 8:01 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by batikrose at 8:01 PM on May 24, 2010
Response by poster: This will be used for coding so multimedia playback issues are not a problem. However, if I'm limited to the same resolution as the laptop display for the external that could be sucky. I have a 1280x1024 LCD and running it at something lower would be painful.
msbutah, what model number do you have?
posted by waxboy at 8:20 PM on May 24, 2010
msbutah, what model number do you have?
posted by waxboy at 8:20 PM on May 24, 2010
Response by poster: uncanny hengeman, I'm shopping online for the lowest possible price so the likelihood of me being able to ask technical questions to a knowledgeable salesperson is close to naught. Your strange tale is duly noted, however. I will not expect this thing to work with any display I may encounter, at least not without effort. As long as I can be certain that it will work with my home setup I'll be content.
posted by waxboy at 8:40 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by waxboy at 8:40 PM on May 24, 2010
Sticker on the back says I have a D250-1026 Model KAV60. I just took it downstairs and double checked with an older LCD and it ran with extended displays, primary at 1024x600, secondary at 1280x1024. (Photo) In the pic the secondary monitor is 17", it just centered my wallpaper instead of stretched it, hence the black space. It was usable space however.
posted by msbutah at 8:47 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by msbutah at 8:47 PM on May 24, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks all! msbutah, if you ever find yourself thirsty or dull while in Cleveland coffee is on me :)
posted by waxboy at 9:07 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by waxboy at 9:07 PM on May 24, 2010
It looks like an older macbook used the same chip:http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-notebooks/178095-macbook-gma-x3100-dual-head-max-resolutions.html
(It's a integrated video chip, x3100 from Intel)
I can say that I'm running a notebook with a chipset quite a few generations older, and it can run dual (notebook+ external) just fine, and so does the wife's EeePC with a similar chipset. I would be really surprised if you couldn't run two screens at once (Windows 7 starter limitation notwithstanding - no dual monitors)
posted by defcom1 at 9:21 PM on May 24, 2010
(It's a integrated video chip, x3100 from Intel)
I can say that I'm running a notebook with a chipset quite a few generations older, and it can run dual (notebook+ external) just fine, and so does the wife's EeePC with a similar chipset. I would be really surprised if you couldn't run two screens at once (Windows 7 starter limitation notwithstanding - no dual monitors)
posted by defcom1 at 9:21 PM on May 24, 2010
hmm ...looks like i need to take another look at my setup, sorry for any (unintentional) misinformation, and thank you to defcom and msbutah
posted by batikrose at 9:39 PM on May 24, 2010
posted by batikrose at 9:39 PM on May 24, 2010
Best answer: I was easily able to do dual screen with my Asus 901, with good performance, simultaneously using the laptop's 1024x600 screen and a 24 inch 1920 x 1200 external monitor.
But a few caveats: the 901 uses the Intel 945GME for graphics, the Acer Aspire uses (apparently) the 945GSE; they're similar but not the same. And I didn't do it under Windows -- but since the hardware (probably) supports it, I suspect Windows does too.
I did it under Kubuntu 8.04, by modifying my xorg.conf to make a single 2048 x 1800 x 16 virtual monitor, then using xrandr from the command line to place with the laptop virtually above the external monitor. (Making a virtual 1920x1800 monitor didn't work for some reason; I got "noise" on the external.)
It really worked pretty well, and it was amazing to see the 9 inch netbook drive the 24 inch monitor.
I'm now using Kubuntu 10.04, which defaults to using compositing, and I suspect I'd see a slowdown if I tried this with compositing turned on. And, under 10.04, probably "I'm supposed" to use the HAL and not modify xorg.conf. There's a setting for it under system settings, but grayed out without a monitor plugged in.
Oh, that's the other thing. I bought my 24 inch in 2004, but it plugged and played as soon as I plugged in the VGA cable. I was really surprised how easy it was.
posted by orthogonality at 1:41 AM on May 25, 2010
But a few caveats: the 901 uses the Intel 945GME for graphics, the Acer Aspire uses (apparently) the 945GSE; they're similar but not the same. And I didn't do it under Windows -- but since the hardware (probably) supports it, I suspect Windows does too.
I did it under Kubuntu 8.04, by modifying my xorg.conf to make a single 2048 x 1800 x 16 virtual monitor, then using xrandr from the command line to place with the laptop virtually above the external monitor. (Making a virtual 1920x1800 monitor didn't work for some reason; I got "noise" on the external.)
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Defaultdepth 24
[snip other resolutions]
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Virtual 2048 1800
EndSubSection
[snip]
Monitor "monitor1"
EndSection
I forget the exact xrandr command i used, but it was probably:
xrandr --output LVDS --auto --output VGA --auto --below LVDSNote that as the 945 chipsets use main memory, not their own, increasing the virtual resolution uses more main memory, which means more paging, which means slower applications. I noticed no slowdown, but I wasn't using graphic intensive apps: a few Open Office calcs, Eclipse, a bunch of bash prompts in Console.
It really worked pretty well, and it was amazing to see the 9 inch netbook drive the 24 inch monitor.
I'm now using Kubuntu 10.04, which defaults to using compositing, and I suspect I'd see a slowdown if I tried this with compositing turned on. And, under 10.04, probably "I'm supposed" to use the HAL and not modify xorg.conf. There's a setting for it under system settings, but grayed out without a monitor plugged in.
Oh, that's the other thing. I bought my 24 inch in 2004, but it plugged and played as soon as I plugged in the VGA cable. I was really surprised how easy it was.
posted by orthogonality at 1:41 AM on May 25, 2010
« Older Help me keep track of my home when I'm away. | Carbs & calories in Korean alcoholic drinks? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
But the main reason I'm posting is to relate a strange tale that might also help. I always work double monitor [laptop + "proper monitor"]. My last job involved a ridiculous amount of moving from desk to desk and on one occasion I couldn't get the feature to work on a particular desk's "proper monitor."
It took the IT help-desk boffins many hours [and many different boffins] to work out the problem. They ended up having to download a driver, even though the "proper monitor" looked about the same age as all the other ones I'd used.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:53 PM on May 24, 2010