Client wants 3 monitors in windows 7

jadams0289 · 29 Sep 2010

I have a Client that has two Dell Vostro 230's running windows 7 professional. They are going paperless in their office and want to run three monitors. What hardware do i need for this? i have a PCI-E slot, then the really small PCI-e slot. then i have two PCI slots on the motherboard. What would be the cheapest most stable way to add three monitors to this rig? not a gaming computer. its just an office computer so i dont need to have anything fancy! Thanks in advance!

Lemur · 29 Sep 2010

One possibility...

Matrox Graphics - Products - Graphics eXpansion Module - TripleHead2Go

Lordbob75 · 29 Sep 2010

You would need either 2 graphics cards, or to get 1 graphics card that supports split DVI. Not entirely sure about the Split DVI thing (haven't heard much about it), but you can theoretically split 1 DVI port to 2 (separate) monitors.

~Lordbob

skulspike92 · 30 Sep 2010

lol you should have posted this on a gaming website since everyone over there nos how to do this. Basically what you need is one good graphics card or 2 average ones. If you have one good graphics card, ATI Radeon 5XXX or the soon 6XXX series cards, then all you really need is an minidisplayport to DVI dual link adapter. No card can run 3 monitors by itself, since they don't draw enough power to push the monitors, so this dual link adapter pushes the third monitor with the usb drive.

On less top of the line graphics cards, that only have 2 inputs in them, the cheapest thing to do would be to buy another one of the same exact graphics cards, and crossfire them. To do this, it's pretty simple, all you need to do is put the second graphics card inside your comp and from there you got 4 input ports. These 4 ports will actually allow you to have 4 monitors running from your comp. Just youtube how to crossfire graphics card(if you have a ATI graphics card) or how to SLI cards(if you have a NVIDIA card).

Lordbob75 · 30 Sep 2010

skulspike92 said:

lol you should have posted this on a gaming website since everyone over there nos how to do this. Basically what you need is one good graphics card or 2 average ones. If you have one good graphics card, ATI Radeon 5XXX or the soon 6XXX series cards, then all you really need is an minidisplayport to DVI dual link adapter. No card can run 3 monitors by itself, since they don't draw enough power to push the monitors, so this dual link adapter pushes the third monitor with the usb drive.

On less top of the line graphics cards, that only have 2 inputs in them, the cheapest thing to do would be to buy another one of the same exact graphics cards, and crossfire them. To do this, it's pretty simple, all you need to do is put the second graphics card inside your comp and from there you got 4 input ports. These 4 ports will actually allow you to have 4 monitors running from your comp. Just youtube how to crossfire graphics card(if you have a ATI graphics card) or how to SLI cards(if you have a NVIDIA card).

You assume that they have 2 PCIe x16 slots, which they don't.

~Lordbob

thefabe · 30 Sep 2010

Welcome to SevenForums You can purchase a ATI 5770 series card that is capbible of running 3 monitors from 1 PCI-E Slot. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-906-_-Product

Then their is a program called UltraMon that is designed for business applications. The information can be found here Realtime Soft UltraMon Under the features tab on the left you'll see all the screen shots were taken using Windows Seven.
Under Overview at the bottom it will let you take a feature tour. Hope this will help. Fabe

Almost forgot you will have to make sure your power supply will have the proper power requirements for this card as well as the power plugs to the cards.
They suggest a minimum of a 500w but reccomend a 600w power supply that is crossfire ready.

darkphantom · 30 Sep 2010

^That was exactly what I was going to suggest.

There are ATI cards out there that support tri-monitors :)

Also, there are USB VGA Extension devices that are easy as plug n Play:
http://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digital.../dp/B003JK40BI