Connecting multiple monitors to your laptop may be a good decision if you need more screen spaces and you don’t want to spend your hard earned money buying extra PC Computers. If you can get your hands on some fairly used PC monitors, then you can connect them to your laptop with some few simple steps. Connecting multiple monitors to your laptop would be easier if the monitors and your laptop are using the same operating systems {i.e. Windows 7, XP, or Vista}. Just before you connect the 3 monitors to your laptop, you need to cross check few things :
• Two flat panel LCD monitors or CRT monitors or one from each type, and you need to check that they have the ideal screen resolution size and they must be compatible with your laptop ports.
• Two monitor cables; these must match the connection types you need on your laptop.
• Check the availability of monitor connections such as DVI, VGA, and HDMI connectors and check for the ones you need for this purpose. You may need to install a video adapter in order to change the connection type you want to use.
Now you are ready to connect 3 monitors to your laptop and here are the steps you must take in order to do it;
Step 1:
With the appropriate connectors and ports, connect each monitor to your laptop through the connector cable or box; complete your connection as shown below. You need to connect two monitors to the cable first and then add the third as shown below.
Step 2:
Plug in the monitors and switch them on. Your laptop should automatically detect the first monitor but if it doesn’t, then you will need to restart your laptop. You need a monitor cable in order to connect 3 laptops to your monitor. You will also need to enable the “Dual view” if your laptop is using Windows XP.
Step 3:
Once your laptop has detected the monitor, it will automatically apply the display settings appropriate for each of the monitors connected.
Step 4:
The next step after connecting the monitors to your laptop is to configure the displays. You may use automatic display setting options or do it manually but you have to check specific display setting procedure for each of the operating systems- Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows 8 seperately. In the pictures below, display settings for Windows are illustrated but basically the same procedures applies to other Windows OS. Simply drag the monitor icons so that they can be arranged and then click on “Identify” to label the monitors as A.B.C or 1,2,and 3 depending on how you want it.
Step 5:
Extend your displays to allow you drag and share items between the monitors, Grab the title bar with the aid of your mouse, and drag it to the new display on the screen { make sure you double click on the title bar before moving it to your display}.
Step 6:
Duplicate your displays- these will be the displays on all the three monitors. These new displays will be at the default settings on your laptop, and this will be very helpful especially when you are making a presentation via a projector.
Step 7:
Let your desktop be shown on just 1 monitor
You can simply get all your display on one monitor while the remaining two go blank, you can simply do this by disconnecting other monitors via your laptop settings. When you disconnect other monitors, the original displays of your monitors will appear only on your primary monitor, that is, your laptop. All your open files and windows programs will also be displayed on the primary monitor and next time you switch on the secondary monitors, windows will automatically upload the same display settings which you used the last time before switching off the monitors.
Troubleshooting
Even though the process of connecting 3 monitors to your laptop should be straightforward and easy, but the fact that several hardware and software from different sources may create some conflicts means you will need to do some troubleshooting and make adjustments. If your laptop fails to detect another monitor, simply ensure that the monitor is properly plugged and switched on. Check the display setting and click on “Detect” and check if your computer supports multiple displays or visit Microsoft update website – check and click on “Custom” and click on the hardware updates therefrom.
You may need to visit the manufacturer website of your laptop to download and install updates such as ; adapter updates . You need to check updates for your Operating Systems too to check whether they are compatible with the primary laptop system.
Having three monitors extra will definitely alter the way you work with your computer, you will need to keep a contact view of multiple tasks you run on all monitors to avoid confusion.
Here’s a couple of the most popular monitors you can use:
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