Category Archives: Hardware

This Dual Monitor Hardware Category groups all posts related to hardware for Dual Monitors

Monitor Control Software

Whether you are using single, dual or multiple monitors with your windows computer, the MurGeeMon Monitor Control Software can be of real help. This Monitor Control Software will work fine with Windows 8, it does works already well with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, etc. The Monitor Control Software can be downloaded for free and tried. In order to download and try out, there are no charges or complex registration procedure to be followed.

Control Single, Dual or Multiple Monitors with this Monitor Control Software

Control almost every aspect of your Monitor

Changing Monitor Orientation, Changing Monitor Resolution, Select Desktop Background on Windows XP, Windows Vista and other Windows version in style of Windows 7. Monitor is used as a visual device to communicate with Windows Operating System and applications running on it and hence this Monitor Control Software allows to play around with other Windows Settings really easily. Get finest control over your connected monitors, even if you do have only one monitor connected to your windows , even then lots of features of this software can be really helpful. There are inbuilt tutorial videos scattered all over the application and hence, whatever you want to do, you will find appropriate software tutorial embedded in the Monitor Control Software itself.

Download the Monitor Control Software on your Windows Computer and control your Monitor(s) from a single software. Change Desktop background, Change Login Screen background (on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows), Change Screen Saver with only few clicks, Change Login ScreenSaver easily. Turn Off or On the Secondary Monitors, Change the Main Monitor with Shortcut Key Combination, Customize the System tray menu to move the menu commands as you would like them to be. Run SlideShow on any Monitor, get the finest control over your dual monitors, change monitor resolution or orientation of any of the monitors with desktop shortcut and in case you do have Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can enjoy few extra features to control your Monitors. The extra features for Windows 8 and Windows 7 include useful JumpList to easily control the monitors and inbuilt mode controller to switch from extended mode to clone mode or even enable / disable the extra monitors connected to the computer. Irrespective of the number of monitors you are using, you will find this Monitor Control Software to control your monitors really easily and as you would want them to be controlled.

Dual Monitors or one Big Monitor ?

Monitor Resolution is one of the important things whenever you plan to upgrade to extra monitor space. Decision of whether to go with dual monitors or just get a one big monitor will depend on number of factors. There are numerous benefits of having dual monitors as compared to having a single monitor, however monitor resolution, monitor size and ofcourse your intended work play an important role in deciding whether to do for a big monitor or get two monitors connected to your laptop or desktop.

Let’s analyze hardware part first for having a single big monitor. A single big monitor can give you good viewing area and can be really useful if you do work with complex applications such as graphics designing, trading software, video editing etc. Before going ahead for buying a big monitor, be sure to check the maximum resolution it supports and also what’s the maximum resolution your graphics card of your laptop or desktop will support. In case the new big monitor will be able to support bigger resolution as compared to that supported by your graphics card, your display will be limited to the maximum resolution supported by your graphics card and you might wish to upgrade your graphics card.

From the usability perspective, a big monitor is needed in case you frequently need to scroll with scrollbars. In case you do not have to scroll and are comfortable with the current monitor, then going for extra monitor might be a good option. However if you do have to scroll frequently, do go ahead and get a bigger monitor after analysing whether it will be supported by your graphics card or not.

For having dual monitors, you would need an extra monitor and probably a new graphics card. In case your desktop or laptop already has an extra port available for connecting the other monitor, then you might not need to buy another graphics card. In case you do go ahead with an extra monitor option, remember that it will be supported technically by your computer and hence would require more efforts by the CPU, memory etc. In case you do plan to buy another graphics card for driving dual monitor, remember that the price range is very much varied depending on the dual monitor graphics card you choose. Do spend some time comparing technical details of the graphics cards, review technical details of your extra monitor and ofcourse the price range as well.

Few of things that you will be able to do with an extra monitor are as enumerated below:

  • Change Display Orientation of any of the monitors independently. (Provided your Graphics Card and Monitor Supports it)
  • Have Dual Wallpapers for Dual Monitors using 3rd party software named as MurGeeMon.
  • Rotate the other Monitor Physically depending on your requirements with probably a dual monitor stand.
  • Let Two Applications run simultaneously in full screen, one on each monitor.
  • Work on One Monitor and let the other monitor display some video in full screen mode.
  • Move Application Windows to any of the Monitors when both monitors are connected in Extended Mode.
  • Display the same content on both Monitors (termed as Clone Mode, supported in Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows 8, etc.)
  • Interchange Primary (The Monitor on which Start menu will be displayed) and Secondary Monitor (Monitor on which no Start menu will be displayed).

In a nutshell, decision of whether to go ahead with dual monitors or one big monitor depends on requirements, available hardware, and many other such related things. Do explore this blog to know more about what all dual monitors can give you. Do understand the concept of dual monitors fully before making any purchase and making any decision.

Dual Monitor Windows 7

Yes Windows 7 does supports connecting dual monitors to the PC really easily. All you would need is appropriate hardware which might include two monitors, laptop with VGA / DVI / DisplayPort or other appropriate port to connect the monitor to Laptop, Desktop with dual monitor graphics card, connecting cables and ofcourse a PC running Windows 7. Once you have connected dual monitors to your windows 7 pc, there are good chances that when you power up your computer, you would not need to install any display drivers and windows 7 will recognize your dual monitors and will allow you to configure the monitors using the control panel’s Screen Resolution option.

Screen Resolution Option in Windows 7 to Configure Dual Monitors

Configure Dual Monitors on Windows 7

On Windows 7, you can right click on Desktop and select the Screen Resolution Option to configure your dual monitors. Screen Resolution of control panel in Windows 7 is displayed above in which two monitors are connected in extended mode. In Windows 7 , the dual monitors can also be configured to display the screen in clone mode (The Display Mode in which both the Monitors will display the same Stuff). Windows 7 also allows to enable or disable the monitors at will and also allows to move Monitor position in the virtual screen space. In order to move the Monitor position just drag the appropriate monitor in the Screen Resolution panel to your desired location and save your settings.

Windows 7 has provided significantly better support for dual or even multiple monitors. The MurGeeMon Software provides added features to the dual monitor experience in Windows 7. To start with Windows 7 does not allows to specify different wallpapers for dual monitors and you are forced to select only single image file. The MurGeeMon software allows to configure different background images for dual monitors, provides System Tray Menu and Icon to configure dual monitors really easily. The Monitor Control Software even allows to enable or disable monitors at will with desktop shortcut, system tray menu or even with system wide shortcut keys. Windows 8 is rumored to provide better support for dual monitors and expected to be launched in 2012.

Dual Monitor Frequently Asked Questions

Using Dual Monitors with Windows Computer provides extensibility and can be really helpful. This post talks about Frequently Asked Questions related to dual or multiple monitor setup in Windows. In case you do not find answer to your question, please do use the search facility and there are good chances that you will find answer to your question in this dual monitor blog.

  • How to run Dual Monitors in single resolution ? : Navigate to Display Settings of Windows Control panel and find out what’s the appropriate resolution available and set it on both the monitors.
  • How to save a dual monitor background ? : Find out the wallpaper currently set using the Display Settings and save it wherever you want.
  • How to select different background on 2nd monitor ? : You can easily set different background such as MurGeeMon to set different background or do image manipulation using an image editor.
  • How to move desktop icons to secondary monitor ? : Just drag the select icons onto secondary monitor from desktop of primary monitor.
  • How to force program to open in 2nd screen ? : In case the selected program has the feature to remember it’s position, all you need to do is close it while the main window of application is on second screen, else you would need a 3rd party software such as MurGeeMon to force the program to open on second monitor.
  • How to extend desktop via command line ? : Windows by default does not provide a command line option to extend the monitor with command line, however you can use MurGeeMon to create a desktop shortcut to extend the desktop and copy the shortcut’s command line and use it anywhere you want.
  • How to disable double screen ? : Open up display or screen settings and disable the second screen from there.
  • How to connect projector to desktop ? : Think of project as another monitor and configure display settings as you would for second monitor.
  • How to change screen orientation for dual monitors ? : Just treat every monitor as separate monitor and use display settings to change orientation or use MurGeeMon to change screen orientation of any of the monitors using desktop shortcut.
  • How much does it cost to connect dual monitors to a desktop ? : You would need an extra monitor, and probably a dual monitor graphics card (internal or external) and cost can vary according to your selection of monitor size, quality, company and the same will apply to the cost of dual monitor graphics card, however the cost of a graphics card can be much lower than the cost of an extra monitor.
  • How to change screen and mouse rotation ? : On a Dual Monitor Windows Computer connected in Extended Mode, the Mouse Rotation will depend on the position of two monitors in the virtual space. You can change the Monitor(s) layout using display settings from the control panel.
  • How to clone monitor on windows 7 ? : Open up Screen Resolution control panel option in Windows 7 and display settings using control and select Duplicate desktop on 1 & 2.
  • How to connect extra monitor to desktop ? Lookup whether your Desktop has an extra VGA, DVI or any other relative port available for connecting the second monitor. In case you do have a dual head graphic card in your desktop, all you would need to do is plugin the appropriate cables and use the display settings to configure the extra monitor. This blog has comprehensive information about dual monitor hardware stuff, do have a look at it , understand all the technical stuff and only then connect the extra monitor to desktop.
  • How to setup slide show on secondary monitor ? : Just drag the slideshow software to second monitor using title bar or use SlideShow Software inbuilt in MurGeeMon.
  • How does Keyboard works in a Dual Monitor Extended Setup ? : In case you are using an internal or external graphics card, you keyboard will provide input to applications in focus, irrespective of whether the application is on first or second monitor.

Connect TV to Desktop

Connect TV to your Desktop Computer with a Dual Monitor Graphics internal Card. Watch Movies, Photographs, SlideShow on the connected TV or Projector easily. In case you do have a Dual Monitor Graphics Card connected to your desktop’s PCI or PCI Express slot, all you need to do is connected your TV or other audio visual device using appropriate cable to your graphics card’s output port, navigate to display settings of control panel and extend or duplicate the display as required.

Given below figure displays control panel settings of a Windows 7 computer. The desktop computer displayed below has a dual monitor graphics card connected. In total there are 3 display devices connected to the graphics card’s output ports. One Monitor is connected using VGA Port, Other Monitor is connected using DVI port and the TV is connected using the Televison Port to the graphics card. Although there are 3 display devices connected to the graphics card, however only 2 of them can be active at a given time.

In case you also have a TV Tuner card connected to your desktop computer, you can further manage the televison display to be displayed onto any monitor easily or you can just move the TV Tuner Card’s Video Window to First, Second or onto your connected Televison set. Internal TV Tuner cards come with either PCI or PCI Express slots. In case you are planning to use dual monitor graphics card and TV tuner card both to your computer, you must take care into consideration about the heat dissipation of the dual monitor graphics card and slot type into which both the cards will be connected. Many desktop computers have only one PCI Express slot and multiple PCI slots.

When connecting TV to your desktop computer, you will be able to manage the graphics displayed onto your television set using your mouse and keyboard. Managing multiple display devices on a windows computer requires the understanding of clone mode and extend mode. Windows 7′s control panel (Screen Resolution Window) provides understandable terms. In the above screen shot, the Multiple displays drop down provides option to Duplicate desktop on 1 and 2, Duplicate desktop on 1 and 3 and Extend desktop to this display.

Connect Projector to Windows Desktop or Laptop

Connecting a Projector to a Windows Computer can be really easy. In Order to connect a projector to a laptop or Desktop Computer running Windows 7, Vista, XP, Windows 2000 or any other operating system, information about hardware and software can be really of help.

In order to connect a projector to a desktop or laptop, first of all have a close look at the ports available on your pc. Can you find a spare VGA or DVI port on your computer? In case yes, that’s brilliant and your computer can be connected easily to a projector. This extra VGA or DVI port will be used to transfer the screen data to the projector. In technical words, your computer supports dual monitors and you can connect any other display in clone mode, extended mode , pc only or in projector only mode. This blog is all about dual monitors and you can find lots of information about dual monitor windows computers here.

Once you have located the extra port for connecting the projector, you would need to connect the appropriate wires such as power supply to projector, a cable from your computer’s DVI or VGA port to projector and finally handle the control panel of the projector to project at the required screen controlling the brightness and other settings. Most of the times, you may not require any extra software or driver to connect the projector to your computer, however you can find the monitor control software to handle various settings of a computer connected to a projector or any other display device. The monitor control software will treat the computer’s screen as primary monitor and the projector screen as secondary monitor and will allow you to control both the displays really easily and quickly.

After connecting the projector to the computer, check all the cables and settings once again and once you are completely sure that all the cables are well connected, power up the computer and projector. Depending on the projector type, it may take some time to get the display, once you have the projector display on and running, checkout the control panel of your windows computer and select the proper settings as required, such as display screen data on projector only or display on both screens or display only on one of the screens.

Dual Monitor Trading Computer

A Dual or Multiple Monitor trading computer is a simple computer which allows to connect dual or multiple monitors to a single computer. All the screens or monitors connected to a computer can be controlled by a single keyboard and mouse. The Extended mode is what you will need to display different applications on different monitors, however you can switch to clone mode as well to display the same data on all monitors.

The number of monitors which can be connected to a computer depends on a lots of things out of which the graphics card is the primary one. In case you are planning to convert your desktop computer to a dual or multi monitor trading computer, there can be lots of things to consider. First of all you need to decide on number of monitors you wish to connect, once you have decided on the number of monitors, you would need to think of an appropriate graphics card. Dual or Multi Monitor graphics cards can be connected to motherboard’s PCI or PCI Express slot. Dual Monitor graphics cards are cheap as compared to triple or quadraple monitor graphics cards. Apart from graphics card for your trading computer, you must consider upgrading RAM (if possible).

Laptop to External Monitor

Connect an external monitor to your laptop and enjoy the benefits of dual monitor windows computer. In case you are wondering how to connect an external monitor to your laptop easily, this post will enumerate steps to get your dual monitors (one laptop monitor and one external monitor) working on a windows computer. This post will identify the steps required to handle software and hardware issues for windows computer. On a higher level you would need a laptop running microsoft windows computer, an external monitor will power cord and data transfer cable to connect to the laptop and a freely available VGA or other relative connector port on your laptop.

Regarding hardware information for connecting an external monitor, do have a look closely at the laptop and find out a blue VGA connector with 15 pins or holes. In case you can find the VGA connector, you are one step done for connecting an external monitor to the laptop. However in case you cannot locate the VGA connector, then you would need a USB Graphics card to connect external monitor to your laptop.

Shutdown the laptop and then connect the external monitors’ data cable to the VGA port found on the laptop and provide required power supply to the external monitor. In case you are connecting the external monitor using a USB graphic card, connect the external monitor’s data cable to the USB graphics card. Now power up the laptop and you are almost done with external monitor’s connection to the laptop.

Now depending on the Windows Operating System and your requirement for connecting the external monitor to the laptop, you can control both the monitors using Display Settings of the Control Panel. You can also use the Dual Monitor Software to control various aspects both the monitors connected to your Windows Operating System.

Screen Rotation

Monitor or Screen Rotation can be achieved in two ways. One would be rotate monitor physically using a rotatable monitor stand and second option would be to just rotate the screen contents and let the monitor screen be physically where it is currently.

In case you are looking forward to rotate screen physically, you can look for dual monitor stand which will allow you to physically rotate screen and yes they can provide more physical stability to the computer screen. Do spend some time on Internet to look for the ideal monitor stand as there are plenty of them available in the market out of which few allow only to fix the screen at a single place and other allow you to rotate the screen physically easily.

Rotate Screen in steps on 90 degree with keyboard or shortcut

Screen Rotation options

However in case you are looking forward only to rotate the screen contents, you might wish to have a look at the software screenshot on left which provides option to create a keyboard shortcut key combination to rotate screen content in step of 90 degrees. The Screen Rotation using the shortcut keys can be done clockwise or anticlockwise. So let’s say you have Task Bar on the bottom of the computer screen and you rotate the screen by 180 degrees clockwise or anti clockwise, you will get an upside down image and your task bar would be visible on the top of the screen, also note that your mouse cursor movements will still be in context of the new screen display. Other Screen Rotation options you can have with dual monitor software are shortcut on desktop, a new menu in right click of Vista or Windows 7 Desktop and in case you do want to have any other option as well, shoot an email to the support team.

In case you have dual monitors connected to your windows computer in extended mode, then you can just move mouse cursor to the monitor whose rotation you wish to change and press the shortcut key to change screen rotation of the monitor. You can always revert back to the original screen orientation by rotating the screen in the opposite direction.

Secondary Monitor Not Working

This post may be helpful if you do have dual monitors connected to your desktop or laptop computer. There may be many issues due to which secondary monitor may not work and hence this post will give you an idea on how all the dual monitor setup works and how you can figure out what may be wrong and possibly fix it as well. Also an important note here is that as the author is not aware of your operating system, physical things about your computer such as cables connecting computer to monitor, actual monitor state, etc etc, the information given below must be taken for reference only and do anything only and only if you do fully understand and take responsibility for your actions. In case you are not sure of the information provided here, ask a friend or post link of this post on other website to understand the information given here about dual monitor.

The Computer works with two programs, one is called BIOS and one is called the Operating System. A Computer starts with a program in BIOS and then hands the control over to Operating System. Now in case you do have a dual monitor graphics card connected to your computer and your secondary monitor is not working, there is something wrong somewhere and broadly speaking there can be a hardware or software problem.

  • Power Connection from Power Supply to Monitor : Hardware Problem as Power Cable may not be well connected to the Secondary Monitor, does your monitor has a LED displaying power state?
  • Data Cable connection from Computer to Monitor : Hardware Problem as the cable from computer to secondary monitor may be loose or any of the two ports of the data cable or port of graphics card may be loose or broken.
  • Something wrong with BIOS Settings : Can be categorized as Software Problem as the BIOS settings can be changed easily by a person who fully understand the BIOS setting to be changed. The BIOS settings may have an option to select the display device, also remember that if you have connected an extra graphics card to your desktop computer’s motherboard, then the mother board’s port would be disabled automatically and you will have to connect the monitors to the ports of graphics card.
  • The Monitor itself may be broken : This can be categorized as Hardware problem. Is your Monitor Powered ON ? Does it has indicators to show monitor power state and whether it is connected to computer and receiving data? On Computer Startup, does it displays the boot sequence?
  • The Graphics Card may be non functioning : In case the graphics card is broken you may not get display on any of the connected monitors or you may get display on primary monitor and no display on secondary monitor, it is really hard to say.
  • There can be some settings issue or driver related issue in the Operating System : This Software problem can be figured out by asserting whether the problem is really due to a display driver or something like that. In case you have a Windows computer, power on the secondary monitor, make sure that it is well connected to the computer and start your computer in safe mode (by keep on pressing F8 when the computer starts) and check whether you do get display on secondary monitor or not. If you do get display on secondary monitor (might be in clone mode), then there may be some incorrect display setting or some display driver causing the issue.

There can be any other issue as well if your secondary monitor is not working. In case it was working previously, try to remember what changes you have done to the computer (if any) or you can even look for the problem in sequence at all the above said places. Also you may consider checking given below things with your computer

  • Does the Secondary Monitor displays the boot sequence when it starts up? In case yes it does shows up the booting sequence (information about computer manufacturer, etc), then probably there may not be any hardware problem with your secondary monitor or associated hardware such as cable connections, graphics card, etc. In case the secondary monitor does not shows up the booting sequence, then you might need to make sure that the monitor is powered on and well connected to the computer at the appropriate port to the computer or if you are well versed with the cable connections and you do have an extra monitor or laptop to which you can connect the monitor and check whether there is any issue with dual monitor graphics card or monitor, it might save you a lot of time finding the problem due to which your secondary monitor is not working. Do not do change to your computer, cables, monitor or anything else if you are not sure and fully confident about the changes. In case you do have a friend who knows about computer’s cable connections to monitor and has done already, ask him / her for a hand.
  • The Software issue can be solved with understanding of the problem and then finding the solution itself. Have a re look at Display Settings of your computer. In case you can change the display mode to clone mode, give it a try. In case the secondary monitor does not work even in clone mode, find out whether the secondary monitor is detected by the operating system in display settings or hardware list, you might need to update display drivers.

All above information is for reference purpose only. Do not make any software or hardware change to you computer unless you are really sure and confident about the change.