4 monitors with windows 7 combining pci and pcie ??

thebone

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Hey gang, sorry for the noob question.

I am not much of a hardware guy and googling gets you millions of opinions, all from strangers and some of whom may work for certain interests and slag a competitor's product.

I've heard you guys are the authority.

Anyhow, here's the deal

Windows 7
asus a8n-vm
Nvidia 8500ge force
athlon socket 939 2.2 ghz
600 w power supply
4 mb ddr ram
2 x 250 ide hds, 2 x 1 tb extrnals

At this exact moment in time, I have two monitors, both plugged into the geforce which is using the lone pcie slot. They are setup as their own display (not sure if that's the right word, but the display is not repeated; i drag apps, docs etc to the second monitor and use the primary for other things). One uses the vga, the other uses the hdmi of the video card.

Mobo onboard vga unused

I just bought a soundcard which will use one of my 2 pci slots.

I was strongly thinking of buying 2 more monitors and going with a 4 monitor setup.

Ultimately what I want to know is:

1. does windows 7 allow it ? for what I have been reading it will allow up to 10.

2. If I have one video card in the pcie slot, can I use a pci video card for the second pci slot (first pci used by soundcard) or will the video card in the pcie slot "cancel out" the second video card in the pci slot ?

If possible with another pci card, is there any particular "spec" of card i should/would need ?

Thanks in advance to all who help !!!!
 

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7
OS
7
I have not tried it with Win 7 but it should work fine.

I would go withthe same brand card (though different model probably ok). That way you can use the same driver for both of them.

I used to do this a lot before video cards came with two outputs. One card int he latest whizz bang video slot ant the other in the older slot (ususaly always an older card laying around). And it always worked in the past.

If you have a card lying around just try it out. Hook your second monitor to it. If it works, go buy those other two monitors! :)
 

My Computer My Computer

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Windows 7 x64 Ultimatei7 96012 Gig Corsair DominatorNvidia 480
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Scratch built
OS
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
CPU
i7 960
Motherboard
Asus P6X58D
Memory
12 Gig Corsair Dominator
Graphics Card(s)
Nvidia 480
Sound Card
Maudio Delta 44 + breakout box
Monitor(s) Displays
Dell UltraSharp U2410 24in and Samsung 21 dual monitors
Screen Resolution
1920x1200 and 1280x1024
Hard Drives
Primary: Intel X-25M G2 160G SSD
Secondary: Segate baracuda 1.0 TB
HDs in AHCI mode.
PSU
Corasair TX850
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Cooler Master HAF
Cooling
Corsair H50
Keyboard
Logitech G15 + N52 game pad
Mouse
Logitech MX518
Internet Speed
15kbs down 4.5kbps up
Other Info
WEI 7.6
CPU & RAM 7.6
Graphics 7.9
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