What's the best way to add another? I was thinking a USB adapter I could plug a third monitor into, but would use some advice on what exactly to purchase.

Setup is a newish Latitude on a docking station, and I want to use the laptop monitor, plus two additional monitors (1600X1200), which each have analog and digital ports. The docking station has 1 HDMI and 1 VGA port, but I am unable to activate all three monitors in Windows 7, and when I try I get an error message roughly like the title of this thread.

What should I buy to fix this?

12/27/2012 2:53:03 PM

Anything you buy is going to be pretty crummy. Usb2.0 can't carry the bandwidth for high resolution video, but you can probably get by with 1600x1200. The frame rate will probably be ass, and probably only good for email/writing. I've seen the USB adapters but the one or two I tried several years ago were garbage.

12/27/2012 3:01:39 PM

Quote :

"What should I buy to fix this?"

a macbook

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 3:06 PM. Reason : ]

12/27/2012 3:06:19 PM

^They don't support triple monitors either, unless something has changed in the last generation.

Just looked up a bunch of the USB->VGA and USB->DVI adapters, and they have exactly the same problems they always have. You get zero hardware acceleration, so no flash video, no 3d, abysmal WPF and Silverlight performance, horrible framerates even for web browsing, and very limited color depth options.

12/27/2012 3:27:58 PM

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many-many-monitors/

Airs can support 3, macbook pros can support 4

12/27/2012 3:35:42 PM

^^^ Derp derp, this is a work computer. Thanks for dropping in with the fanboyism though

^^ I'm fine with those things, I knew it was going to be a little laggy getting into this. I guess I just need someone to point me towards the best of these poor solutions

12/27/2012 3:47:21 PM

Not fanboyism, just the only solution I know of to your problem.

12/27/2012 3:51:24 PM

You could go with an external graphics card. There's the old Matrox eXpansion DualHead2Go module that would add an additional 2 monitors using DVI's. It's pricey at $160.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815106032

There should be other eGPU solutions out there, but from what I recall, they are even more expensive that involved specific docking stations that allow the use of MXM cards. Even asus had their own solution back in 2007, the XG station, that died out the following year since its $400 price tag and the use of the budget 7900GS (later upgraded to 8600GT) lacked any significant performance for its price.

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/External_Graphics_Card/XG_Station/

There's been plenty appearances from many companies over the years in their take of eGPU solutions in consumer trade shows, but not one reasonable priced solution in recent years have turned up. Then again I haven't really followed that product category like a hawk.

Another idea is a DIY eGPU solution. It will hinder your mobility, but think of the possibility of adding a full sized GPU to your laptop!

http://lifehacker.com/5851902/turn-a-low+powered-laptop-into-a-gaming-machine-with-an-external-video-card-dock
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=988062
http://forum.notebookreview.com/e-gpu-external-graphics-discussion/418851-diy-egpu-experiences.html

12/27/2012 4:38:29 PM

http://www.displaylink.com/shop/adapters

12/27/2012 4:56:36 PM

Quote :

" They don't support triple monitors either, unless something has changed in the last generation"

The rMBP supports 3 external monitors (maybe 4, i think the thunderbolt allows chaining).

12/27/2012 6:50:32 PM

Quote :

"Just looked up a bunch of the USB->VGA and USB->DVI adapters, and they have exactly the same problems they always have. You get zero hardware acceleration, so no flash video, no 3d, abysmal WPF and Silverlight performance, horrible framerates even for web browsing, and very limited color depth options. "

There's no hardware acceleration, but they work fine for flash videos even HD videos, since CPU decoding is more than competent for these task these days.

The only time you'll have real problems is for anything 3D. Otherwise, I've seen 3 of these added to a laptop and used on a daily basis for non 3D tasks, and the user had no clue they weren't getting hardware acceleration.

So if the OP isn't doing 3D, these USB things would serve him will I think.

12/27/2012 6:53:12 PM

I use a DisplayLink based one at work and it does video and light 3D fine. I tend to drag video off of that monitor since it makes everything that's NOT the video distort, but other than that it's great -- there's no perceivable difference between that screen and my other two. I use it for a 1600x1200 (max supported res.) wing monitor. There are USB3 versions out now that should do higher resolution, a guy at work just got one to push a 1920x1200 monitor, and it seems to work fine so far. The only caveat with those seems to be that they're mostly HDMI, so you need to plug it in to a HDMI>DVI converter.

12/28/2012 12:17:05 PM

Quote :

" Derp derp, this is a work computer."

about 40% of my dev center (~90 people or so) are on mbps


although we use the external usb things for 3rd monitors, and like Noen said, they're pretty crap. I'd love to use the thunderbolt port the way it's supposed to be used, but they will never pay for us to have thundy monitors

12/28/2012 2:25:03 PM

^^ Yeah, I imagine USB3 would make these things much more usable, but then most systems (laptops) that would need one probably don't have USB3.

Quote :

"http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many-many-monitors/ Airs can support 3, macbook pros can support 4"

Ahh, yeah I forgot about thunderbolt. But that's just another chicken and egg problem. For the cost of trading in your current laptop and getting a MBP/Air + 3 thunderbolt monitors, you could just buy keep the laptop you have, buy a loaded desktop and three normal monitors.

12/29/2012 12:17:38 PM

You don't get 3 thunderbolt monitors.

You get 3 regular monitors, and 2 mDP to DVI adapters, and an HDMI to DVI adapter.

12/29/2012 1:54:02 PM

I have a USB displaylink monitor, it's plenty good enough to move my Outlook window or something to that monitor. I've even extended AutoCAD to it and it was usable enough.

12/29/2012 4:59:46 PM

Quote :

"but then most systems (laptops) that would need one probably don't have USB3"

Mine is a couple of years old (dell precision m6500) and has a couple of USB3 ports. All the new dells I've seen around the office have at least two, like me. It's really hard to tell which are which from the documentation (because afaik it's not really documented) but the plastic inside the USB2 ports is white while the plastic inside the USB3 ports is blue. I'm not sure if that's an accepted convention or just something dell does.

1/3/2013 3:25:11 PM

Something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-UD-3000-Universal-2048x1152-Ethernet/dp/B008N06I2I/ref=pd_cp_pc_2

USB 3.0. Essentially an additional docking station. Supports up to 1920 by 1200.

Targis has one too:

http://www.amazon.com/Targus-Docking-Station-Ultrabooks-ACP70USZ/dp/B005YR1PV2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1357248456&sr=1-1&keywords=targus+usb+3.0+dock

1/3/2013 4:27:50 PM

Think I'm going to try this out to save my workplace some cash. It was that or the Matrox I think.

http://www.everythingusb.com/iogear-usb-hd-video-adapter-21132.html

Review looks pretty solid, especially I just need it for office work.

1/4/2013 1:17:39 PM

Mine is an IOGEAR, though that's kind of a red herring because almost all of them (^ & ^^ too) use chips (and drivers) from DisplayLink.

1/4/2013 5:02:12 PM