Windows 7 - multiple monitor problems

Hi

I just bought a new laptop specifically so I could have 3 monitors in total [the one on my laptop plus 2 additional monitors]. The laptop has a video card with 2 ports [one VGA and one HDMI]. I was told I could set up the 2 additional monitors by connecting them to these ports. I have them all set up but can only get one of them to work [so I now have 2 monitors working including the one that is attached to the laptop]. I went to the control panel disply settings and played around with that for quite a while. It shows images of 3 monitors but the 3rd one is grayed out and I cannot get it to work. I can switch between having 1 or the other additional monitor to work but cannot get all 3 to work. It seems to me that all this should be straight forward but its not working for me. Hopefully I have explained all this right. Can anyone help?

THANKS!!

Are you sure that the laptop can handle 3 displays running at the same time? Maybe to have both external monitors to work, the laptop display may need to be disabled.

This is taken right from Gateways Support page: (Gateway Support - Specifications)

I take that to mean that the laptop's display is one independent display and it supports another (external) independent display also.

Unless the video is based on the new ATI HD 5xxx series (and even then not sure about on a laptop) it can't support more than 2 displays at a time. Specs for MKC's laptop,

Gateway Support - Specifications

the reason it can only support 2 at a time is the video card only has 2 RAMDAC's on it,

RAMDAC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

so the best you're going to get is 2 of the 3 (either the laptop screen with one of the externals, or both externals).