How to Setup Your Computer With Dual Monitors

Video Transcript

"With computer displays getting cheaper, one thing people are starting to do is add multiple displays to their setup. Hi, I'm Charles Stewart Jr. and I"m going to show you how to add two monitors to your computer. First thing you've got to make sure of is what kind of graphics card you're running in your computer. A lot of lower end computers have integrated graphics cards, and what that means is that most of those are designed for more office environment, not really gaming or anything that's graphic intensive, so they, the graphics are actually integrated to the Motherboard, the board that like kind of houses everything. So, there's really no expandability option there, but you'll find most graphics cards you can get as a PCI or a PCI Express, or at the very least, most all computers have PCI slots in them. So, and if you have open PCI slots you can buy an expansion PCI card and then run dual displays from that. But, the easiest way to find out is turn your computer around and look at the back of it. And, where you see your monitor plug is, there should be an identical, or you know, you'll have a VGA plug which is blue, and then a DVI plug which is white and you'll either have two of those, or a blue and a white one, and one of those should be used by your current monitor. So, then you'll get your other display, and then you'll plug it into the back of your computer, once you've figured out you've got it. So, now we're running on Windows, now that' you've got both monitors hooked up, most of the time Windows doesn't automatically notice it, so you have to tell it that there is another monitor present, at least with Windows XP. My current configuration, I'm running on a video graphics card, you might have an ATI, or some other one, but usually there's some form of control panel for that particular one. You can access it by right clicking on the monitor and going to properties, and then going to settings, and then there, there should be an advanced tab, or some tab that was designed by whatever graphics card manufacturer you have, you click on advanced, go to that's my graphics card, I'll start my control panel, and you just scroll down the list till you see set up multiple displays. Again, if you're running ATI, it might be a little different, but it should have some mention of dual displays in there. And, then you have options, if you want to clone it, which is good if you're in a boardroom and you've just bought a big display, and you want people to see what you're doing on your computer, to like teach a class or you know, show power points or something like that, that's one way to go. But, the very popular way of doing it, is creating the horizontal span. So, when you do that, you click that and what that does is allows you to use both as like one big display. So, you choose that and then you choose how you want it set up. Whether you want to you know, this to be the one on the right, and this one to be on the left, so you don't actually have to physically move the monitors back and forth. So, once you've got it set up, you hit apply, and now it's got both of my monitors set up and It'll ask you to keep that configuration, I just choose yes, and as you can see, I can drag my boxes back and forth, it's using it as a you know, one big display. And, that's it for hooking up dual monitors to your computer."