Extended Monitor Will Not Share Desk Top

Reason · 01 Feb 2012

I have a acer aspire 5400 with a NVIDA GT 430 1g Dedicated graphics card. I have my main monitor hooked up through DVI-I port and I want to go to my lap top to use it as a second monitor by VGA. I have gone through all the procedures, I E Windows button and chose the extended function on my main screen and all I get from the Second is a blank desk top with no cursor and without the ability to move browsers or work to the second screen. The my lap top and desk top are detecting each other, however I cant get them to identify as screen 1 and screen 2. They both want to stay screen 1.

Any suggestions

Kari · 01 Feb 2012

Hi Reason, welcome to the Seven Forums.

There is no way you can use your laptop as a secondary display for your desktop simply by connecting it with VGA to your desktop. It does not work.

You can connect external display to a laptop to use multi display mode on laptop. If you want to use multiple displays on desktop, you need to use monitors or TV's equipped with VGA, DVI or HDMI. Laptop display is impossible to use as a secondary display for your desktop without some heavy tweaking.

Can I use my laptop display for my desktop?

With some restrictions, you can use laptop as a secondary display over the network. Here's how: Bits Bytes n' 42: Using the spare laptop as a secondary monitor.

Please keep in your mind this is not suitable for graphic intensive stuff:

Since the desktop is captured, streamed over the LAN and recreated at the destination end this is generally ideal for the static text windows. But it is quite acceptable for small sized videos as well.

Kari