VGA Splitter

I have an Acer desktop running XP Home, that I wanted to hook a second monitor up to, and have an extended display. I have a VGA splitter that I have used sucessfully before (with an HP desktop, but also running XP) to do exactly this. So I hooked up the Acer with the splitter cable, it clones the primary desktop, but it won't give me the option for extended desktop. When I check the windows properties under SETTINGS, it's not showing the dual monitors with '1' and '2' on them, it's just showing a picture of a single desktop. In the NVIDEA control panle, under multiple monitors, it's only registering my primary also. Like I said above, I have used this cable sucessfully in the past for extended display, so I don't think it's a hardware issue. Any ideas?

 

I think you are recalling your previous setup incorrectly. A splitter does exactly what its name implies -- SPLITS the video signal from one source to two outputs. An extended display would be a completely different and separate video output (as the Extended display would OBVIOUSLY be different than the Primary display... no task bar, start button, separate desktop icons, etc.).

 

I agree, it should just split the signal. But I'm a thousand percent positive I've done it with this very cable before... Anyway plan B. This desktop uses integrated video. I've installed an old Asus PCI card as a secondary display adapter. The PCi card is working, but it's disabled my on board video. Any thoughts?

 

You can't use onboard video AND a discrete/separate video card simultaneously. The only way to use multiple GPUs is to use SLI/Crossfire (with two discrete/separate video cards on a motherboard that supports SLI/Crossfire).

 

Cool. Thanks. I guess I'm going shopping for a card with dual outputs.