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Setting up 3 monitors on one computer with Windows XP Professional

I have a Windows XP Professional system with an AGP video card that supports dual monitors. How hard would it be to add a third monitor? Could I simply insert a PCI video card and Windows will automatically configure itself? Are there any pitfalls you know of in attempting to add a third monitor?

Any info is greatly appreciated!

dudeman456

What video card do you have?

Ztrain2100

ASKER

The dual vid card is an ATI Radeon 7000 with 64 MB RAM. I don't have the PCI vid card yet; I'm open to suggestions.

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caffeineshark

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Callandor

Multiple monitors is supported in XP - here's an article about it: http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/multimon/index.x?pg=1

magus123

you can only 1 video card in your computer .

you need a svga 3 way cable splitter

heres 1 that does 2 monitors

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41999&item=3476044019&rd=1

heres on that does 4 monitors

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=174&item=4126278890&rd=1

heres on that does 8 monitors

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=174&item=4126160295&rd=1

Callandor

magus123,

You are passing on incorrect information. Please check your facts, because more than one video card can be installed in an XP system; namely, an AGP video card plus a PCI video card, and each one can have multiple heads.

abriggs1

Callandor is right on the video cards

Ztrain2100

ASKER

Caffeineshark, that's exactly the right concept I was looking for. I think it's likely to work with the video card that I have and if it doesn't at least I know of an AGP / PCI combination that will work. I also happen to have a similar model Dell computer like what was used for the test system.

Callandor, thanks for watching out for the bad advise given above!

magus123

i was not aware that you can install more than 1 video card , good to know ,i stand
corrected. thanks for clearing that up for me. sorry for the bad advise.

Callandor

No problem, we all learn new things here. That's part of the draw of this site. As you learn, you develop a better knowledgebase, and everyone benefits.

conquestor

There are a couple of things to consider, Older PCI cards sometimes have problems being the secondary card. Many of them require you to change you bios to initiate PCI first. So basically it will make the PCI card the primary. Most people dont want to do this since the agp is going to be far superior to the pci card and some games will only use the primary video card.

The way to solve this is with a newer PCI video card. The newer pci video cards I have played with have no problem being a secondary video card in a system.

Just some food for thought!