Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dualmonitor

Dual monitor weirdness?

k8t — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:24:35 -0800

Dual monitors with a DVI splitter in XP but they're acting screwy. For a friend. He has 2 monitors and wants to use them both. His graphics card has both a VGA and a DVI port. He can't use them both at once - trust me, we tried. He bought a DVI splitter and it works, but here's the problem:

When the main monitor is on and the second one is on, both work fine. But when the main monitor is on and the second one is connected, but not on at the screen switch, the main monitor has wavering streaks. When the main monitor is on and the second one is connected, but the electrical plug is taken out of the monitor, the main monitor works fine.

Any ideas? I told him to play around with the refresh rate, but this sounds like a power issue to me.

Maybe he needs to tell Windows not to extend his monitor before turning off the 2nd monitor?

Thanks! I hope that this works versus buying a second graphics card. (And yes, I already suggested that a new computer would make things easier...)

Dual head mac with KVM?

hardcode — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:07:40 -0800

So, finally after many years away from the world of Macs I'm about to take the plunge and buy one. The issue is that I want to use my current 2 monitors, PC USB keyboard and Microsoft (yes, ok, I hear you) USB mouse and a KVM switch

I have a dual head PC, driving 2 DVI monitors from one Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS, using a VGA to DVI adapter to drive 2 Xerox 19" monitors. This works fine.

I'd like to add a Mac Mini to this setup and have a KVM to switch between the two so I keep the desk area relatively clear.

So the plan so far is:

Buy a Mac Mini, which comes with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter

Buy the additional mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter

Hook those 2 DVI outputs and my current PC DVI and VGA-acting-as-DVI outputs into a KVM (currently looking at the Aten CS1642 caution 900+K PDF)

Enjoy the best of both worlds!

So, the questions:

Does the mini-DVI and mini-DisplayPort idea work? That should drive 2 x DVI monitors correctly from the mac-Mini shouldn't it?

Can anyone suggest another KVM? The 1642 is rather expensive!

Any issues you can see?

Thanks for your time!

Tips for Dual Monitor on Windows XP?

Admira — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:54:37 -0800

Hi All, I just got a second monitor at work. Yay me! My second monitor is a widescreen (my main one isn't). I'm still getting used to it, at the moment I have put email on the right hand screen, and everything else still in the main one. I'm only really struggling with Citrix applications - they seem to like to pop up in the middle, splitting across screens. But I'm after any dual monitor on Windows tips in general. I've already installed the free MultiMonitor Taskbar which I really like. Thanks!

How does one play back 2-channel video?

Artifice_Eternity — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:27:02 -0800

It's becoming increasingly common in the art world to see various forms of multi-channel video: works or installations in which video plays back on more than 1 screen at a time. If I wanted to create a 2-channel video piece, what technical means would be available to me to play back both video channels in sync with each other? Creating 2 synced videos is not a problem for me. I would edit each video separately, but working with a common soundtrack. The mystery is how to play them back together. Anyone know how this is typically done?

I imagine there may be a computer-based solution. Many computers will now support 2 displays; perhaps the right software would be able to send a separate feed to each video output. But I don't know what that software would be, or even what file format would be involved. Perhaps 2 separate conventional files played simultaneously? Or 1 file with a double-wide aspect ratio, split in half down the middle? (If the latter, how the hell would I produce such a file?) Hive mind, clue me in if you can.

Is there a fix for this dual monitor issue?

mephesta — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:58:07 -0800

If I turn on my secondary which is connected to a DVI to HDMI adapter and then turn it off it disconnects my primary which is connected via VGA. I have my Panasonic Plasma hooked up to my Nvidia graphics card through a DVI to HDMI adapter. My monitor is hooked in via the VGA port on the same card. I am trying to use the monitor as my primary and the television as the secondary. If i leave the television off when booting up, my monitor works fine. When I turn on the TV they both work just fine. However if I turn the TV off, I hear the device unplug sound that windows makes as if I disconnected a USB drive. Then my monitor goes black and loses the signal. I can only regain the use of my monitor by turning the TV back on. I have tried several combination's of booting with just the TV on or both off, etc. This is really inconvenient and I was hoping there is a fix, I know I have used this setup before and it has been fine but since I reformatted a few months ago the issue has been constant.

Any help will be extremely appreciated! I won't be able to thank you enough.

PC specs in case they are needed.
Mobo: Gigabyte EP45-DS3L
Proc: Intel Q6600
Ram: 4gigs DDR2-800
Graphics: Nvidia 8500GT 512mb (latest drivers installed)
OS: Tried on XP x86, Vista x64, Windows 7 x64
Currently using vista x64

Color Inconsistency Between Two Calibrated Monitors

roundrock — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:02:42 -0800

Why do two properly calibrated monitors look very different? I have a dual monitor setup -- a Samsung 216BW and a Wacom Cintiq 21UX -- with each monitor running on its own graphics card (Nvidia 8400 and 8800, respectively). I'm calibrating with an X-Rite i1Display2. According to the i1D2, both monitors are properly calibrated -- but the Cintiq is much warmer/redder, and the Samsung is considerably cooler and yellow/greener. What gives? It occurred to me that the problem could just be that I am using monitors of two different qualities (cheapie Samsung with a TN panel vs. H-IPS panel Cintiq), but shouldn't that only affect the color gamut - not the basic color tones? I'm considering dropping $2K on an NEC or Eizo to replace the Samsung, but it's only worth it if I know I that I can achieve color consistency with my Cintiq and ultimately accurate color overall.

At this point, I just have no idea if I'm getting inaccurate color from the Samsung or the Cintiq -- and, more importantly, I don't know why it's happening. Please help!

Wacom Display Toggle Advanced Options?

Señor Pantalones — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:28:22 -0800

[wacomfilter] quicksilver (or system hotkey) + wacom screen switching integration? I use the ExpressKey on my wacom to toggle display focus (preferences->expresskeys->display toggle). My primary is a 30", secondary is the built-in screen on my MBP.

There are two reasons this is annoying:
1. The expresskey only functions when pen movement is detected, meaning I have to move the pen while pressing the button to switch screens. This makes single-handed screen-switching difficult.
2. It's just not in a convenient place for me since the wacom is my primary mousing input located to the right of my keyboard. The expresskeys are on the left or right and require more cognitive load than usual mousing behavior.

I'm looking for help in a few possible ways:
1. assigning display toggle to the secondary button on the stylus. The prefpane won't let me.
2. assigning display toggle to a quicksilver command
3. assigning display toggle to a system hotkey

Can anyone recommend a way to implement one of the above three?

Thanks!

How do I get streaming web videos to stay full screen on a second monitor?

inbetweener — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:18:22 -0800

How do I keep a web window full-screen on one monitor while working on another? So basically I have just hooked up my old 32" CRT TV to my PC via S-video as a second monitor.

One thing I want to be able to do is have Youtube / Joost / whatever-streaming-webs-source videos playing full screen on the TV whilst working on my PC.

Whilst this works with keeping apps (e.g. VLC / windows media player) full screen, when I play a flash video via Joost or Youtube in Firefox and expand it to fullscreen on the TV, it just collapses back down again the moment I click anything on my primary monitor.

I tried searching around and couldn't find an obvious solution for this - anyone have any bright ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Hardware solution for synched playback of two DVDs on two monitors?

Mister_A — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:32:08 -0800

I need to play two separate DVDs at the same time on two separate monitors. The output must be synched precisely as the two signals will work as a single "show" on two adjacent monitors. I need a reliable and idiot-proof way to do this. This is going to be used at a trade show, so this must be durable. Also, since I will not be there to personally supervise, it needs to be as simple as possible to operate. Non-technical people will run the thing. The show is about 7 minutes, and I would like it to run on a continuous loop.

Is there some kind of dual-DVD deck that will do this? I prefer not to run this from a PC.

Thanks!

Monitor madness!

zackola — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:08:19 -0800

What widescreen monitor will work well for me? Here's the situation.
Home setup: 17" NEC 1770NX 4:3
Work setup: 2 17" Dell 4:3 monitors.

I really like having the dual monitor setup, so I'm going to upgrade my home rig with another monitor. I think I want to go widescreen for the main monitor, then have my 4:3 NEC set up vertically on one side. What's the largest widescreen monitor I'll be comfortable using with a viewing distance of 18" and taking the second monitor off to the side into consideration?

It is not possible to increase my viewing distance to the monitors as my desk depth is only 20". FYI, I am thinking about one of the Dell WFP models. Thanks!

Dual monitors and remote access. Not what you think.

wile e — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:39:14 -0800

Dual monitor/remote access/I'm a moronFILTER: Accessing a desktop machine that used to have a dual monitor setup but now has none. My desktop machine (Win XP sp2) has a NVIDIA graphics card with dual monitor support. I had it running for a few years with two monitors and it worked wonderfully. Now I have the desktop sitting by itself, with no mouse, keyboard, or monitors hooked up and am only accessing it remotely via logmein.com pro.

Here's my problem: I didn't disable the dual monitor setup while they were still attached. I assumed that it would still output in a dual monitor display (remotely) even with the displays removed. I was incorrect. It defaulted to a single monitor display. But now, when I open certain programs that used to run exclusively on the 2nd monitor, they are 'off-screen'. I can force some of them onto my default display by right clicking the item on the task bar and hitting maximize. But if the program has a sub-window pop up, its gone forever. I have tried every option (I think) in the nView desktop manager that comes with the NVIDIA video card. I've even attempted to disable the nView controls. I cannot get it to work.

I know the obvious answer is to hook up the two monitors for a minute and properly switch over to a single monitor setup, but as I am lacking the monitors at the moment thats not the best solution right now.

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If anybody knows how I can force my desktop machine to think its still outputting to two monitors, that would be awesome. I would love to get the added real estate on my remote connection without having to use a virtual desktop.

If I have confused anybody, please ask and I will attempt to make my situation more understandable.

Thanks!

Two monitors are so geeky.

CXImran — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:47:35 -0800

Is there a way I can get rid of the top status bar when I'm playing games in Windowed mode? So, I love playing games in Windowed mode because it lets me work my dual monitor setup to the maximum potential. The problem is that when I have one Window taking up the whole monitor, XP's ugly status bar (the bar with the minimuze, maximize, and close buttons on the far right) prevents the game from being truly full screen. Is there any way I can disable the status bar through a shortcut command or through some kind of control panel setting?

How can I hook up a second 17 inch LCD flatscreen monitor to my Power Mac G4?

brokekid — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:49:00 -0800

How can I hook up a second 17 inch LCD flatscreen monitor to my Power Mac G4? What's the best and cheapest way to do this? I can't quite figure out the best way to do it, even the guys at the Apple Store were kind of clueless.

Alt-tab is asking too much! Help me help my computer!

cowbellemoo — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:47:28 -0800

DualMonitorFilter: What am I missing? Two-cards, two monitors to get an extended Windows desktop. What I want: My main monitor plugged into my newest PCIe card showing my main desktop and games, and my other monitor plugged into another gfx card that will always show an extended windows desktop for browsing, iTunes, etc.

What I have:

Windows XP Pro
GeForce 7950GT (PCIe) -- main card
Radeon 9250 (plain PCI)
HP f2105 -- main monitor
Viewsonic VX710

All fitting into this computer (tigerdirect barebones kit links to motherboard)

I've looked up other AskMeFi posts, visited the wiki entry, read the online help, visited the nVidia and ATI sites, but I can't quite get the hang of it (and I was so impressed with myself putting together the kit, too..). My main gfx card has two heads and can display on both the monitors fine, but I want a two-card setup so that my games run at the max resolution of the main card -- 2 monitors on that one card limits it in the games since it's splitting processing power between the two.

I don't know much about the PCI and PCIe architecture, but I gather from just looking at the mobo that I can't have more than one PCIe card in my computer at once -- the smaller PCIe slots that are labeled on the link must just be for SLI or something (I have another newish nVidia PCIe card if that's wrong and I can use those little slots).

So, I'll have to use the plain PCI card to run the second monitor. When I install the PCI card in one of the plain PCI slots, connect the monitor, and boot -- neither displays anything but the PC (apparantly) continues to keep booting with no display. I installed the secondary monitor drivers as well. I went into the BIOS and changed the PCIe card to the Primary Display Driver (instead of setting it to "Auto"), but the same thing happens -- neither monitor shows anything.

Are the nVidia and ATI cards incompatable for this purpose? I assume it's not a software issue since neither of them are displaying. Is the older ATI card not multi-monitor capable? Do I need to find a nVidia plain PCI card that will play nice with my 7950? Is there something else I'm missing completely?

Auto-export of embedded Flash video to second monitor?

nitsuj — Mon, 08 May 2006 11:16:11 -0800

Can embedded Flash videos (ala YouTube and Google Video) automatically export as full screen to a second monitor like Windows Media Player and Quicktime does? Whenever I watch embedded videos online through Quicktime or Windows Media Player, the video plays in the embedded player and it also gets automatically exported to my TV which is setup as monitor 2 through my video card. Is it possible (via an extension, perhaps?) to get Flash videos to do the same thing?

(I know that both YouTube and Google Video have full-screen options, but this isn't what I'm looking for.)

The details:

Firefox 1.5.0.3
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

Thanks!

Need dual monitors to run on XP

sailormouth — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:13:38 -0800

Troubles running dual monitors on xp. Been to ATI site, tried searching Google, searched Ask archives. Video card = ATI Radeon 7000/VE
Monitor 1 = 19" HP 9500
Monitor 2 = 17" HP pavillion mx70
Both monitors are connected through VGA Y-adapter.
I am only getting cloning. I want to extend Monitor 1 desktop on to Monitor 2.
Resolution is set the same on both monitors.

Display Settings:
Monitor 1 shows as primary and extend Windows desktop. Both are greyed out. Identify shows 1 on both monitors.
Monitor 2 I can click as attached. Identify does not show anywhere.

I installed the ATI multimedia package with Hydravision from the cd that came with card. This added many tabs when selecting Monitor 1, Advanced. There is not a Display tabs (which is all the ATI site talks about).
I installed a newer version of Hydravision from the ATI site. Still no change.

Display Adapter driver is ATI.
When I updated the XP driver for the monitor it is reflected for both monitors. So I can either have Default Monitor driver, HP 9500 driver, or HP mx70 driver for both.

I am not sure what else to look at/for.
Suggestions/questions welcomed and appreciated.

Enabling dual monitor support on iMacs?

Space Coyote — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:04:03 -0800

iMac G5 dual monitor hack -- Has anyone given this patch a try to enable dual monitor support on consumer Macs? I'm getting an iMac G5 if this is reliable enough to work in a production environment, if not I'll have to go higher-end.

How do I send a slideshow in Windows XP slideshow viewer to a monitor?

nylon — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 18:44:12 -0800

Windows Slide Show Viewer in Dual Monitor Mode. I need to run a full-screen slideshow of some jpgs in a folder from a peripheral monitor, while doing other stuff on my laptop screen. Windows XP slideshow viewer (the one that comes up when viewing a folder with pictures in it) is perfect, but every time I try to run it from the monitor, the slideshow actually takes place on the LCD screen. How the hell do I get the show to run on the monitor?

Why do images opened in photoshop look different on my two monitors?

Big Fat Tycoon — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 07:30:35 -0800

I've recently moved to a dual-monitor set up, one CRT and one LCD, and I've discovered that I have a strange problem with Photoshop. If I open photos I've shot, on the LCD, they appear brighter and oversaturated -- when I open the same photo to the CRT, the colour is darker. If I open a photo on the LCD and then move it to the CRT, the photo will contain rectangles of colour that match either the appearance on the LCD or CRT. Is this some kind of colour profile issue that I don't understand? I've installed the LCD calibration software and that's about all I can think of doing to solve the problem. Help?! I'm imagining it's something I don't know about Photoshop, because as soon as I save these files to JPGs, if I view these JPGs from Windows, they look the same on both monitors.

Video cards and TVs as monitor

Big Fat Tycoon — Wed, 19 May 2004 09:49:36 -0800

I just picked up a second monitor and am running in dual-monitor mode, but my video card also has a VIVO tv-out port which I connect to my TV. Are there video players like BSPlayer/vlc that will output to the TV, without having to swap it back in as a "secondary" monitor?