History: Odd situation here but I'll explain it the best I can. A co-worker wants to have two additional monitors while he uses his notebook. He was given two Dell LCD monitors to use with his Latitude D630. Because the D630 can only use one additional monitor aside from it's LCD screen, he installed a Visiontek ATI x1300 PCI card into his D/Dock. Theoretically it should work but this leads me to my question.
Question: What is keeping the two monitors from displaying anything?
Attempted Solution(s): First the basics. Yes the monitors are plugged in, powered on, and set to use DVI inputs. All the connections are correct. When I began working on it, I made sure the card was enabled in the device manager. Disabling and re-enabling didn't work either. So I went to display properties to make sure the additional monitors were detected and had the desktop extended on both for which they were. However, every time I enabled 'extend the desktop', the monitors would flicker and then go back to the "check connection" box so I know they received a signal. Next I tried the ATI Control center but still nothing. Finally I reinstalled the drivers and software but still no go. The odd thing is that in the Bios, if I set the video to use the Docking station by default, then I get nothing on all three screens. At this point I'm thinking it is a bad card but is there anything else I'm missing?
Additional Info: The OS is WinXP SP2 and onboard graphics are Intel Extreme 2.
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Sorry for a late response to the thread but I believe the X1300 power draw is too much for the D/Dock. I successfully am running a PCI Geforce 6200 to run 3 monitors in my setup with a Precision M4300 (basically a D830) on a D/Dock. I also tried a Geforce FX 5200 and Quadro NVS 280 PCI cards which worked but with the caveat that I couldn't run the laptop display/laptop's internal video card at the same time, only one or the other - I believe this was due to the FX series necessity of using an older forceware driver. If you want to run both the dock pci video card and internal laptop video card at the same time in Vista, I believe you have to use both the same driver. With my Geforce 6 PCI card, everything works great including the Aero interface.
I'm really interested in this thread. My company is about to send me a Dell Latitude D630 with docking station and I have two other monitors that I want to connect to it so I'll have 3 monitors (2 external plus the laptop screen). The two external monitors are hp1530 models (15" flat). What do I need to do to make this setup work once I get the computer and docking station? From the post above it sounds like I need to buy a video card or something like that. Let me know.
I have had tons of issues with my D630 and Vista enterprise. They all seem to be dock related, but I have swapped the dock to no avail. The problems look just like hardware issues, where the screens (dual Dell 17") will suddenly pixelate and the system locks up, but at this point I am pretty confident the issue is Vista related, as booting out of the dock works fine (generally). My long term solution will be getting rid of Vista, but I haven't had time to put XP back on it.
Another caveat by channelv:
ALL the cards in Vista MUST use the same driver (whether it be a slightly older one or now). I find that the newest 17x.xx versions do NOT support multimon with different video cards, only with SLI with the same card. So stick with 167.xx and 169.xx. Also, the newest geforce card to work with the unified driver is the Geforce 6xxx series. The Jaton 6200 with dual VGA outputs is your best bet, especially since the higher end 6 series might draw more power. The 6200 is hot as it is and I added another fan to it.
ANOTHER caveat is to NOT upgrade your BIOS to version A12 (for my Precision M4300), it may be different for Latitudes. It messed up with the ability to do multimon. I have BEYOND HAPPY with my setup, Aero works perfectly and it is smooth as butter., Now, you should be able to do this 4 monitor setup with the D/expansion port with XP as XP doesnt require the same exact driver. Now, if you need more help at all please don't hesitate to ask. I also don't think this works if you have the Intel integrated graphics. I know it's not really proper ettiquite to say this, but I have spent HOURS upon HOURS getting this to work, and if you feel generious (as I lost my job recently), a Paypal donation no matter how small would be REALLY appreciated. Also email me if you need more info (channelvNOSPAM@juno.com).
channelv:
My comment about integrated intel graphics is slightly flawed, this setup should work fine in XP. Vista's multimon support is a lot better though. If you'd like pictures of my setup, feel free to email me. It was a huge headache, I probably spent 14 hours total trying to perfect it, as well as reformatting like 5 times. I'll save you the trouble, just ask. You can do this with ANY D series laptop, the D400/410/420/430, D600/610/620/630, all D8xx series, even the D5x series I think. BIOS settings need to be set properly too. I even overclock BOTH video cards for snappier response and even gaming. HAPPY TO HELP, ASK ME!!!
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by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-06-24 at 14:24:30ID: 19352403
You dont need to change setting in bios, simply toggle Fn + F8 keys to use external monitor. The problem you wrote above sound like the video acrd add-in dock is faulty. However, try hook up 1 external monitor and use same time with laptop lcd see if it works that way. If work, then you might consider an external video device such as products from Matrox see if it helps better.