two monitors/one PC

[shankle]

Dell GX280 with an Integrated video card GMA900. Dell flat panel with VGA 15 pin connector.
Old Dell Trinitron with VGA 15 pin connector.
I think I need a dual video card. I'm not interested in gaming or running movies
on the computer. So I think a card in the $50 to $75 range would be adequate.
I found one on Newegg with 2 15 pin adapters: PNY vcgfx522apb geforce fx 5200
256mb 128 bit ddragp 4x/8x video card.

Will this work with the Integrated GMA900?
Thanks,
JPS

[Tight_Coder_Ex]

Not that you have too, but when I ran a similar configuration on an ASUS S-presso, I turned the on-board video off.  The only problem you run into is when you redo windows, the second phase of the operation reverts to VGA, so you have to have one of the monitors plugged into the on-board outlet and turn internal VGA back on, otherwise I believe any board with two outlets will work.

The settings I use on my system now being two 24" monitors both set at 1920 x 1200 the system actually sees it as one monitor with a res of 2840 x 1200. Obviously video memory is a consideration on what res you can select and they don't even have to be matched. On a previous system I ran one at 640 x 480 and the main one at 1024 x 768.  This way I could see how my app looked on an older system.  I wonder if anyone is still using 640 x 480  :(

[shankle]

Thanks Tight_Coder_Ex for your reply.
I now know that my Puter has a PCI connection. The PNY board I mentioned in my first message has a pci connection. I think it will work. Not sure what I do with the integrated gma900. I think I have to turn it off.
So, when you buy a new Puter ask for an AGP connection and the cheapest Video card they will
put in the Puter or the integrated video. That way you can move the video card to the new Puter.
Would appreciate knowing if any of my comments are wrong.

[Tight_Coder_Ex]

New motherboards all have AGP so the probability of buying such a computer without it is very unlikely, but it is always a good idea to make sure.  I've never drilled hardcore into BIOS settings, but I just have a rule of thumb, if you don't need it turn it off. Other than that you've got the idea.  Only thing you'll have to decide if you monitors are going to be separate or 1's windows can span the second one.

[MichaelW]

The PNY vcgfx522apb fits an AGP slot.

Assuming the system is a OptiPlex GX280 the manuals are available here.

I didn’t check all of the form factors, but the few I did check all seem to have the same guts. Under video type the specs show:

integrated Intel Extreme Graphics or PCI Express x16 DVI video card

And under expansion bus type:

PCI 2.2
SATA 1.0a
USB 2.0
PCI Express 1.0a

It’s not clear whether the small form-factor systems support, or require, low profile and half-length cards.

In the short time I spent looking I could not find any information on a jumper setting to disable the integrated video. In the BIOS setup the manuals show a Primary Video setting:

“This setting specifies which video controller is primary when two video controllers are present on the computer.�

I doubt that the PCI Express slot would have been included if there were not some way to utilize it. Beyond that, my knowledge of using two display adapters in a system is too far behind the times to be of any use.

Dell has a fairly wide selection of graphic cards here, including some inexpensive ones.

[shankle]

Thanks for the info Michael.

I have the Dell Gx280 mini-tower.
It has a PCI x-16 slot.
I'm still working on how to disable the integrated video.

Have an inquiry in to PNY about the integrated video.
I'll also search the Dell web site for same.
I'll also try ASK JEEVES to see if there is any info there.

Other than that the geforce fx 5200 card should work. It is a PCI
card with two VGA adapters which is what I need and the cost
is reasonable.

[MichaelW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

As of 2007, PCI Express has replaced AGP as the most common interface for graphics cards. With a few exceptions, all graphics cards being released today (2007) from ATI and NVIDIA use PCI Express.

One possible problem is that per the article PCIe 1.1 is currently the most common, and your slot is PCIe 1.0a.

[shankle]

My Windows XP Pro has a wealth off  info on multiple monitors. Click on "help and support".
Type in multiple monitors. It gives a whole bunch on items on multiple monitors.

BIOS - a08
When in the BIOS scroll down to Video. Expand video. This contains two items. Primary Video and Video Memory Size. Go to "Primary Video". This contain two functions: AUTO and ONBOARD. AUTO = use the add in video controller. ONBOARD = use the integrated video controller.
It says the default is "AUTO".
Since my puter has integrated video I don't see why it's not set to onboard? 
Thanks again Michael.

[shankle]

I got the two monitors with my desktop showing on both monitors.
Using Nvidia software it was rather simple to adjust  settings for a
19' an 17' monitor.
I've been reading for hours trying to find out how to put program1 on
monitor2 and then run program2 on monitor 1. This is what I think
every one would want to do with two monitors but the necessary
instructions of how are missing. I have the two monitors set so that
the primary monitor has the desktop with the task bar and all the icons
and the 2nd monitor with only the desktop. I know about Dualview
and that's not the answer.
Thanks for any suggestions on where to look for the solution.
JPS

[shankle]

Wouldn't you know I found the answer 2 seconds after posting the above message.
It involves going to the title bar and dragging the window to the 2nd monitor.
If that doesn't work double click the title bar and then drag it to the 2nd monitor.
Needless to say I am tickled pink.
JPS

[shankle]

For what it's worth here are some more of my feelings about 2 monitors.
Got them up and running with a different desktop image on each monitor.
Can't see how I got along with programming on 1 monitor.
For instance: You want to make a few changes to a program that you wrote
awhile back(that's yesterday for me) and can't remember what I was doing
even with comments. Put the results of the program on the 2nd monitor and
the code on the 1st. It sure helps me.
Having a little trouble with resolutions and fonts. Things I wrote with the single
monitor are now appearing with text smaller and things almost past the bottom
of the screen. I've tried various resolutions of the monitors and various DPI
setting with only moderate success. Makes me wonder about others using my
programs.
Thanks for all the help.
JPS

[daydreamer]

I OC my cpu so I ruined an old PCI card, otherwise I still had been running 3 monitors, it was cool to floormap/skymap coded in asm running simultanously on 3 monitors, so now I have to suffice with 2 monitors on agp

[shankle]

Never fails - another wrinkle.
I have two partitions on my puter and the GeForce FX 5200 by Nvidia which
runs the 2 monitors nicely.
The partitions were created by System Commander 9 by Avanquest (the old V-Communications).
I finally had the time to try and do some maintenance in the 2nd partition
and I was presented with a black screen with the sounds of Windows.
Needless to say that kills the 2nd partition.
I've done a lot of scratching with no results.
Thanks for any pointers.

[shankle]

Problem solved.
It involved disabling the 2 entries in the device manager/display adapter for the intel chips.
I could have sworn that I disabled them when I installed the card.