Good Lord. After much gnashing of teeth I finally got my notebook configured to use three external monitors. Why is this so hard in this day and age? Am I the first person in the world that wants to run more than two monitors from a notebook? Why aren't all notebook manufacturers providing the hardware to get this done easily? I could see if I owned a standard notebook that isn't built for a professional computer user, but I own a Dell M90 notebook that is built for a hardcore geek.
Anyway, enough venting. On to the details...
Following is a detailed summary of everything I can recall of my adventures while trying to get my notebook to use three external monitors. I'll have to concentrate a bit on the details on my specific notebook, but I believe much of what I write here can also be applied to other Dell notebooks. Hopefully, if you're looking to do the same with your environment, you'll find a pearl of wisdom that will help you get set up properly.
Here is what I started with:
That's what I had to start. The M90 comes with two video connectors: A DVI and a VGA. I could run two external monitors using these connections very easily without a hitch at all. Getting three monitors to work was a bumpy ride, though.
The first thing I tried was buying a Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition device. I ordered from here:
Matrox has their own site with a product description here:
This device lets you split a single VGA connection into two DVI connections. By using this I could feed one monitor with the DVI connection from the notebook and two monitors with the VGA connection.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work correctly regardless of what I tried--including having a technical discussion with a Matrox technical support person. One thing that disturbed me about this was that I had an ongoing discussion with the support person and I was trying the suggestions he mentioned, but after a few emails back in forth in which I tried his suggestions all correspondence stopped dead in its tracks. I wrote back to them to remind them that I was still here and I still hadn't gotten the product to fully work, but it fell on deaf ears. There is no excuse for such behavior in my book, so I'd suggest to stay away from Matrox. Any time a customer calls and is completely patient with support people (and I was very patient and courteous), something better should come of it other than the customer getting ignored.
The DualHead2Go device "sort of" worked. Although my monitors support an optimum resolution of 1920 x 1200, the best I could do after speaking with the Matrox support person was 1600 x 1200, which left a fuzzy display. This left me with three monitors running: one with a proper 1920 x 1200 resolution and two with a fuzzy 1600 x 1200 resolution. What to do next? Give up on my pursuit?
Nope.
I sent CDW a return of merchandise request and told them that what I'd like to do is to have them send me another Matrox device and when I received it I would return the one I had, thinking it might be defective. CDW accepted my request, but the wording of the email I was sent made it sound as though their protocol would be to receive my device and then send me another one with the same shipping that I sent my device back to them with. Now that I had three monitors working, though, albeit not perfectly, I didn't want to send the one I had back and wait for the roundtrip process of it getting to CDW and them sending the new one back to me. Once you have three monitors working its hard to go without. Plus, most importantly, my wife was due to deliver a baby within a week so I wanted to get things tied up and finished before that happened (she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!).
I decided to order another Matrox device, thinking I would tell CDW as soon as I got it that I would send them mine back and that they didn't have to send me another one. However, they ended up sending me another anyway, even though I never sent mine back, so I then got two DualHead2Go devices in the mail the next day. Not only did they send me a replacement with trust that I would send my defective one back, but they one day expressed it to me. This, together with the fact that CDW sends you personal contact information of the person responsible for my account in every email they send, makes me highly recommend CDW. I am extremely impressed with their service and I will be using them in the future for all such purchases.
When the new DualHead2Go device arrived, I tried it out and it worked. I could now run at 1920 x 1200 on all three monitors. However, there are two problems with this device: The display is a little bit fuzzy and you don't really get true multi-monitor support.
Because the device splits a single signal into two, you'll never achieve clear 1920 x 1200 resolution on each of the monitors connected to it. It looks decent but not great. If this were the only issue I probably would have stopped my multi-monitor quest here, but with the Matrox you also don't get true multi-monitor application support as well. Each time you start up your notebook you'll have to set the display properties in order to get your monitors configured properly, and you can't use a utility like Ultramon or like the nView utility that comes with some of the NVidia cards (which my M90 did).
So I decided not to stop here. Another problem I wanted to solve with my particular situation is that I have to plug in way too many cords to my laptop in order to use it with an external keyboard/mouse pair and external monitors. The location of my notebook when I am in this mode makes it difficult for me to plug all my connections in, which consist of:
That's a lot of connection-plugging to do all the time. My cohort Rob Scott is also interested in getting set up with multiple external monitors (I told him I'd be willing to be the guinea pig) and he mentioned that I might want to try the Dell D/Dock docking station because it has an external PCI expansion slot. With this slot, he reckoned, it might be possible to connect a video card to it and then run two video cards. This, together with the idea of being able to plug everything into the docking station and leave it plugged in all the time, was worth a shot.
The tricky part of this came down to:
I decided to buy the D/Dock docking station regardless of the external monitor situation, just so I won't have to plug in all the cords all the time. That was a done deal. My next step was to find the right video card.
The PCI expansion slot in the D/Dock is what is known as either "half-height" or "low-profile". This means that not all video cards work in it. You have to buy one that is specifically labeled as "half-height" or "low-profile" or it won't fit. Also, don't confuse a "PCI" card with a "PCI Express" card. PCI Express is a newer technology that is a totally different form factor, so they don't work with each other. PCI Express has a lot more bandwidth (which is important when dealing with video cards) and PCI is an older technology that doesn't have nearly as much bandwidth. For my situation PCI is all I need because I'm not a gamer, but if you need 3D support you might be forced to use PCI Express for the extra bandwidth--which would make you have to use something like this:
After a lot of research I came down to two families of cards: the ATI FireMV family and the NVidia NVS family. Each of these families of video cards support multi-monitor use. For instance, the FireMV 2400 card can feed four monitors, which is more than I need. I now had to choose which card I was going with and my choice came down to this:
I began looking at the ATI FireMV product line and it seemed to offer everything I need. I thought if I got the FireMV 2200 PCI card that I could then run one monitor off of the D/Dock's DVI or VGA port and two off the FireMV card. However, the PCI FireMV cards do not officially support Vista, so that made me a little wary (the FireMV PCI Express cards do support Vista). This, together with the fact that I have an internal NVidia card on the M90 notebook, caused me to take a look at the NVidia NVS line. There are a number of NVS cards and they either support four or two monitors, but only one of them is PCI and not PCI Express: the NVS 280 PCI card.
My one other fear at this point was that I was afraid I would only be able to run the notebook's internal video card or the docking stations' PCI expansion card--but not both at the same time. I spoke with a helpful Dell representative and she mentioned that the BIOS of the M90 leaned toward only supporting one card at a time, but that she wasn't totally sure.
This brought up a possible solution of buying the ATI FireMV 2400 card because you can run four monitors off of it, but it's also roughly around $450. Add this cost in with the $299 for the docking station (sans tax) and the $1200 for the two new Dell 24-inch monitors and it was getting a little pricey for me.
Because the NVidia NVS 280 card supports Vista, costs around $150, and it should theoretically be compatible with the M90's internal NVidia video card (and its supporting nView software that has some nice multi-monitor software built in), I decided to purchase it and give it a try. If it didn't work I'd bite the bullet and live with the Matrox device for a while, at least until Dell comes out with a docking station with a PCI Express expansion slot. I decided I didn't want to buy the FireMV product because of its lack of Vista support.
I didn't try the D/Dock station until the NVS card arrived. My thinking here was that I didn't want my laptop to automatically configure use with the D/Dock without the video card. I'm not exactly sure what happens when you link up to a docking station for the first time, but some sort of software runs that detects the docking device so I didn't want to chance getting locked in a configuration that won't be the actual configuration.
I installed the NVS card in the docking station without a problem, hooked the cords up to it, hooked one monitor up to the DVI port on the docking station and the other two monitors to the VGA ports on the NVS card, docked the M90 in the station and powered up the system. What did I see? I saw what I feared: the two monitors hooked up to the NVS card had my Windows desktop on them running in 800 x 640 resolution and the other monitor (hooked up to the DVI port on the docking station) had nothing. This made me believe that only the NVS card was being used. Blech.
I readjusted the two monitors resolutions and I was left with only one monitor displaying anything, and what it was displaying was in 1920 x 1200 resolution but it wasn't quite right. I rebooted the system and ended up in a similar situation. Blech again.
I then shut everything off, undocked the M90 and booted it up by itself. After seeing Windows XP loading I was greeted with a blue screen of death. "Good Lord", I thought, "Is my computer hosed?" The message on the window said something about a hardware issue because of a memory parity check error. Oh no...time to panic a bit.
I rebooted again and got brought to a screen that asked whether I wanted to start in safe mode, start with the last known good configuration, or start normally. I chose to start with the last known good configuration and got brought to the blue screen of death again. Noooooo!!!!
I rebooted again and decided to choose to boot into safe mode. Windows started up fine in safe mode and I decided to take a look at the System Restore utility to see if that would have an effect. I didn't issue a restore point before trying all this, regrettably, but luckily the system had automatically issued its own restore point prior to hooking up to the docking station. "Wow," I thought, "Whoever did this restore functionality is a God."
I restored to this restore point and rebooted and got into normal Windows mode without a problem. Note to self: Whenever I mess around with hardware again, create my own restore point before doing so.
At this point I breathed a sigh of relief and was thinking I'd go back to the Matrox device, but...
I figured I'd give it one more shot. I booted the system up and used the F2 key to enter the system BIOS. I searched around a bit and discovered there is a setting that allows one to choose which video card one wants to use: The one from the docking device or the internal one. On my system the docking device was chosen by default, so I switched it to the internal card, shut the system down, docked it to the docking station, and rebooted. Another blue screen of death. Dagnabit!!!
I undocked the computer and booted into Windows without a problem. Hmmm.
I then went back into the system BIOS and switched it back to using the docking device's video card by default. For some reason I also thought, "Hmmm, if the two monitors hooked up to the NVS card are driven by the VGA connection, maybe I should try using the VGA port of the docking station instead of the DVI port." I followed this thought through and connected the VGA port before starting up Windows. Somehow, magically, everything started up fine and I had three monitors working absolutely perfect.
Just for kicks, because I wanted to make sure of things before writing this post, I wanted to try the docking stations's DVI connection again just to see if it was really a contributor to the problem I had. I did a system restore checkpoint with the good configuration I had, powered down the system, hooked up the docking station's DVI connector to the monitor instead of the VGA connector, and powered things up. I got the blue screen of death again. I shut down the system, connected the VGA connection from the docking station, powered everything up and everything worked fine.
In summary, this is what seems to be the most important:
If anyone tries this and has any comments to add, feel free to add them here. The more knowledge about this sort of thing the better off we all are. Not much is worse when dealing with computers than dealing with hardware issues.
Comments
I read your solution with great interest plus at least one other solution, but couldn’t get mine to work. I have Latitude D830 with Vista Ultimate, Quadro 140NVS card and a D/Dock. I bought a Quadro 280 PCI card. When I boot vista with the PCI in the dock, the laptop screen shows that Vista is installing drivers, but in just a couple minutes it gives BSOD. I tried all three external screens (no laptop), DVI to VGA splitters, DVI to DVI splitters, nothing worked.
I tried switching between on board video to dock video and vice-versa, no luck. I can’t stay into Vista long enough to see what the problem is. The BSOD always gives IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL which forces me to believe it’s a hardware driver mismatch or IRQ conflict.
If there are total of 4 monitor outputs, should all four be connect? If you have any other suggestions, it would be great.
Thanks for the article.
I've successfully done the same on my Precision M4300 (basically a Latitude D830) laptop and D/Dock, but with a Geforce 6200 256mb PCI card. I had to reformat and install Vista x64 from scratch though as I kept getting BSODs with my previous configuration no matter what I did (I tried all the things you suggested as well).
Anyhow, now it is working with 3 monitors in Vista x64, Aero is enabled and working fine, although I will say that performance is slow when working on the screens connected to the Geforce 6200 PCI card. e.g. when dragging around screens, there is a decent amount of lag, and windows animations are a bit laggy as well. I was wondering if this was the case with the NVS 280 Quadro cards. I'd assume so since the NVS 280 is actually an older chip than the NV44 Geforce 6200, and only has 64mb ram as opposed to my Geforce's 256mb. I think the PCI interface must be the weak link. Please reply and let me know if Aero is smooth in your setup. FYI I am running two 19" LCDs at 1280 x 1024 off the Geforce card and only one monitor off the laptop's internal Quadro FX 360m.
I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get it to work. It's really not wise for me to say anything about a different computer because it has a different BIOS.
I can say that I do not connect all four monitor outputs....just three.
Hey Shan et al,
Followup to my previous post re: this setup with a Precision M4300 (D830). For some reason to get my setup to work properly, unlike Steve, I had to leave my BIOS option to boot with the internal graphics card otherwise it did not work. If I switch to boot with the dock video card I get only the two monitors connected to the PCI video card working and the one connected to the internal Quadro FX 360m does not work. So you may want to just try leaving the BIOS setting to boot with internal graphics - just do whatever works for you. I hope you've got it working by now - post back and let us know!
Also it seems that the laptop had to 'settle-in' to the new configuration somehow or another. It is working flawlessly with Vista + all aero effects enabled. I'm a happy camper!!!! I use 3 monitors as well but I tested with 4 and it works just fine.
WOW, this is a great post. The first time I have read about someone successfully doing what I plan on doing. This was great and detailed.
I will be getting a 630 with the expansion station. with a quad display card. Probably the nvs 440 because it has 256 MB compared to 128 with the ATI.
A couple of questions:
Is it possible to use the dvi and vga ports on the dock, so I can have six monitors (four with the card and two from the dock)
Also, do I need to shut down the machine to undock, or can I just undock and take it with me?
Thanks.
It's really too hard to answer your first question with any true relevance because dealing with computers in this area is still way too much of a mystery. The best I can do is to point out what I said above: I could not get the DVI working in my situation. However, I am running an M90 so your situation may as well be regarded as a different universe. You're just going to have to try it and see. Whatever happens, though, try it a few different ways and try it more than once. Essentially, don't give up too easily.
Also, before doing anything, create a restore point so that you can get back to your current configuration in case something goes wrong.
I need to shut down the machine to undock. If I try to undock I get a warning that I can't quite remember the verbiage of, and it doesn't allow me to proceed any further. It's a bit of a pain sometimes to deal with, but having more than two monitors makes up for it 1000%.
As for your choice of display cards, be careful that you don't get a PCIE card (the 'E' stands for expansion). At the time I bought it, the expansion station only worked with PCI cards (and not PCIE) cards. I believe the NVS 440 is a PCIE card, so unless the expansion station has changed I don't think you'll get the NVS 440 to work.
YES, great point, it will definitely have to be a FireMV card then. By the way, PCIE, (the E stands for Express and a faster card bus speed).
Follow up questions then:
When docked, you use the FireMV and when things applications launch they goto different screens as you can set with the video card. Now after you shut down and are using the laptop on the road, is it a pain and hassle as things launch, or is it pain free and pretty much as it would be if you didn't have the dock?
Does the dock eat up a lot of real-estate on your desk? Is it noisy or a nuisance?
Finally to confirm, even with a 2D video card (the ATI FireMV), you can use it for things like watching a DVD and youtube, right? I can never really get the 2D vs 3D video card discussion.
Absolutely, right now I use my laptop with only 2 monitors, and having 4 (or possibly more) would be great.
Where did you end up getting your monitors from? Do you recommend any specific place? digitaltigers.com seems great, its just that they are a little over-priced and their prices haven't really followed the drop in LCD prices.
THANKS!
I'll preface this once again, just in case, by saying that it's been a little while since I started running with more than two monitors. Consequently, there is a chance that anything I say may be out of date...so be sure to follow up anything I say with some research.
You may or may not want to go with a FireMV card. The reason I didn't choose it is because the PCI FireMV cards are not "certified" for Windows Vista. I still run XP for the moment, but I'll be switching at some point relatively soon. I chose a NVidia NVS 280 which only has two VGA outputs. That's fine for me because I only wanted to run three monitors.
The only application I have trouble with when switching back to laptop mode is Trillian (an instance messenger application). The windows I put on my other two monitors in multi monitor mode stay in those locations when I run in laptop mode, so I have to bring them back to the main screen because when I start Trillian I can't see them. It's no big deal, though, because all I have to do is activate the window(s) and then use Alt-Spacebar-M. This allows me to use the arrow keys to "bring back" any window to my laptop screen. Incidentally, NVidia also installs "NView", a useful application that has a lot of multi-monitor support. I had to stop using it, though, because something in my environment causes it to freeze up all my windows from time to time.
The dock does not eat up too much real estate, in my opinion. I'm not home right now so I can't measure it for you, but it's as wide as my laptop (a 17" Dell M90) and adds about, I'd guess, 10 inches of depth to my laptop. I have mine far away from my desk so it's not an issue for me (I run long cables from it to my monitors). It pretty much makes zero noise...certainly not any more than my laptop.
I can definitely use the NVS 280 for any video such as YouTube or DVD.
I got my monitors from Dell. I like the Dell monitors a lot. I'm not a hardcore video guy, but to me they are exceptional. I use my computer for development, mostly, so I'm not concerned with anything other than, "Does it look good?" They definitely look good.
I have 24" Dells. I forget the model number but they are the better 24" monitor that Dell sells. They sell two models of 24" now, I think, and mine are the better of the two (pricier, too).
That brings up another point: I've been asked what I would favor, fewer large monitors (say, 30" monitors) or more smaller ones (24"). I definitely favor more of the smaller variety. I wouldn't want to go smaller than 24" now that I'm used to them, but you can get two 24" monitors for less than the price of one 30" so it's a no brainer to me.
Curious: the Quadro NVS 280 card has, according to Nvidia's website specs, a maximum digital display resolution of 1600x1200.
How did you obtain 1920x1200 from it, or did I misunderstand your post?
The NVS 280 has a maximum digital display resolution of 1600 x 1200, you are correct. However, I am running each output from it over VGA (analog), which has a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536.
I am so happy to have found this thread!
I have historically been a thinkpad T-series guy. I am running T42 on a Dock II with a Matrox low profile P650 (dual DVI) connected to 2 Dell 21" 4:3 monitors. I use hardware profiles in WinXP. Had to disable a ton of stuff to get it to work without conflicts in the docked profile using ONLY the 2 external screens. Undocked it works just as it always has. Everything was peachy, save the lack of 3D, but its getting slow. Time for an upgrade to a faster processor, SATA, etc.
So after 5 thinkpads, I jumped ship and am going to give Dell a try. Not too happy with the Lenovo offerings or their 1 year warranty. So, my Precision M4300/D830 is going to be here tomorrow with the D/Dock soon to follow.
Here is my question: Has anybody tried this card with the D/Dock? What hiccups can I expect if any?
In the ideal world, I would want to be able to run everything similarly to how I have it setup now, but in Vista w/Aero. As I understand it, vista has no 'hardware profiles' can't use aero with multiple video drivers. So, I am curious what the consensus is here on how to best set it all up when it arrives.
Thanks for any advice!
Mark
Hopefully someone else can provide a thorough answer, Mark.
According to what you wrote above, you will still only be using two monitors--which means you'll be fine because the laptop AND the D/Dock both have a VGA port and a DVI port.. I'll assume, though, since you're on this thread, that you want to run more than two monitors. If so, and since you have a Precision, I'd consider three tips:
I wish I could be of more help to you but it's such a fragile area, dealing with multiple monitors and laptops. I really hope the manufacturers get over this hump because, in my mind, multiple monitor options are an absolute must have.
I'm confident you will love the Precision. Totally blows away a ThinkPad, in my opinion.
Just circling back to update the knowledge base a little for anyone else that stumbles onto this.
I got the precision M4300 and located a D/Dock cheap on ebay. It all arrived, and I was able to get the matrox card to work with the hardware. So, the matrox card DOES fit in the D/Dock with no problems. It also works fine in XP. Didn't try it vista yet. The video is SO much better (docked) than with the old thinkpad that I have lost any desire to upgrade the card further. So, chalk up one extremely happy customer when things are docked.
Undocked, I am not so happy.
1. The M4300 is HUGE compared to what I was used to (D631 at work, T42 at home). I really was NOT expecting that much difference. Not a deal breaker but much more difference than I was expecting.
2. I would avoid the WUXGA screen I ordered. contrast/saturation was poor, blacklighting was uneven. Maybe it was just my particular laptop, but it was bad enough I returned the laptop. It was MUCH worse than my old thinkpad. Text was tiny too, but I expected that. I would get the truelife midgrade display if I were to do it again.
3. The build quality was a little shaky on the M4300 I got. Plastic loose around the KB, etc.
Dell customer service has been great, but I won't be ordering another M4300. The CS rep says there are rumors of new latitudes coming soon so I think I am going to keep on with the T42 until I see what the next gen D630s look like. Then I will be picking between it and a T6xp.
Dell pros: Cust Service is great. 3 year warranty standard. D/Docks are ridiculously cheap (I paid $13 on eBay). D630 build quality is fantastic. Truelife display looks nice in the pics.
Dell cons: widescreen only, little bigger for a given screen size, onboard video chips not as good, PCI only docks, don't like the trackpoints as well
Lenovo pros: better onboard video ships in "p" series, smaller, 4:3 screens still available, seems like they get new chips faster (e.g. you can get a Penryn now and can't at Dell), Advanced dock has PCI express slot
Lenovo cons: Cust Service is rumored to be HORRIBLE since IBM left, build quality seems to be sliding from where it was, 1 yr warranty standard
Anyhow, thanks for the response. Looking forward to what you learn about vista.
Interesting...just goes to show you that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I love the size of my M90. I generally say, "The bigger the better" when it comes to laptops, at least in terms of screen real estate, though I'm not so sure I'd move up to a 20" screen from a 17". I think the 17" is perfect for me. I like a big screen because then I have a lot more to view without scrolling.
I believe I have the WUXGA screen, too, and I couldn't be happier with it. I suppose it could have been your laptop, or perhaps it's my own ignorance of the finer aspects of graphics display. I just know that when I look at it, it looks very good...and I do know that it's much better than any of the ThinkPads I have seen. When I look at a ThinkPad I usually have thoughts in my head saying, "Why do people buy these things?"
The build quality on my M90 couldn't be better, in my opinion. I've definitely not been happy with the build quality on some Dells I've bought in the past (cheaper models I bought for family, etc.) but any time I've stepped up and spent some money I've been happy.
I say all this not to disagree with you in any way--just to offer my own opinion based on what I have over here. The only complaint I have with the M90 is that I paid way too much for it. The M line seems to have come down in price quite a bit.
Anyway, I'm close to dealing with Vista. I bought a second hard drive for my laptop this past week and it's now here. I'm hoping to have a shot at installing it and beginning the Vista upgrade, which will likely be slow for me (hence the second hard drive instead of wiping my current one out).
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for running three monitors with Vista. Please, please, please...
PS - I recently configured a brand new Vostro for my sister in law and I was happy with the build quality of it. For $645 I was impressed at what could be bought. It's running Vista with 2GB of memory and a decent hard drive. Pretty good unit for the money. I could definitely tell a difference between her display and mine (I'm talking quality) but it was pretty good considering the money.
Steve,
I hope my comments were not seen as disparaging towards Dell as a whole. I am sitting behind 2 dell flat panels, and have bought 3 latitudes within the past year (2 D630s and 1 530). The quality with all was excellent. I think I just got something that looked great on paper (size) and probably a bad example of the breed (screen backlight, build quality). If anything, I would say my opinion of Dell as whole has actually improved as a result of this. They could not have been more professional.
I agree on a 17" the WUXGA would be great. On a 15", it gets pretty small. As for the rest of the screens, i am certainly not touting the thinkpads as having a good display. The 15" flexviews were nice but are long gone. The rest are average on a good day. Worse than average by the time you get 3 years of wear and tear on them. I do like that they are still 4:3 (more screen real estate per footprint) but really offered the comparison an illustration of how bad my particular screen on the M4300 was. Much worse than anything I have seen on the D630s or 530. That is why I returned it.
As for size aspect, I travel quite a bit. I guess I sortof naively assumed that the size difference from 14 -> 15" wouldn't be much more than 1" wider. The whole package got big quick. I'd guess 2" wider, 1 " taller, half inch thicker and a couple pounds. So much so it wouldn't even fit in the laptop compartment of my bag. Not a deal breaker, but a lot different in person than on paper.
Anyhow, good luck with the Vista install. The second hard drive is definitely the way to play around with it. I'll be interested to hear your impressions.
Mark,
In no way did I think your remarks were disparaging towards Dell. It's pretty easy to see that you call 'em like you see 'em, and analytically at that, so your thoughts are very welcome here.
Your thoughts about Dell's service are spot on. For a few years they were starting to lose their reputation for offering great service, but based on what I've seen over the last year I'd say they are better than ever. The other thing they have head and shoulders above competitors is their web site. Ordering from Dell is a pleasure, IMO.
I also totally understand your thoughts regarding travel and a 17" screen. I do some traveling and it really doesn't bother me at all, even when on a plane, but to each his own.
I'll be sure to update the thread when I get Vista up and running...hopefully with three monitors.
Steve,
I have a quick question. My Dell Precision M4300 is currently on a docking station at work. Whenever I take the laptop off of the dock, the screen dims to the point it is hard to see anything on it. Do you know how to adjust the the output so that it is the same when it is docked compared to undocked? Thanks.
I'm assuming that when you take the laptop off the docking station that you are running it on the battery. If this is the situation you will want to press the Fn key along with the up arrow. If you look closely at the up arrow on the laptop, you should see something that looks sort of like a purple sun. The down arrow also has a similar symbol on it. They are purple because they are used with the Fn key (which is also purple). The up key used in conjunction with the Fn key brightens the display and the down key dims it.
Hopefully this does the trick for you.
Mark:
Have you tried using three monitors with the exp. station and the Matrox card in DVI mode? In other words, the Matrox card has two DVI output ports, and the expansion station has one DVI output ports. Can you hook up three monitors to the Matrox card and the exp. station using DVI ports only?
What I'm describing above is exactly what Steve did, but in this case using all DVI ports, rather than all VGA ports.
Why bother, you ask? Theorectically, the DVI ports should give a sharper image and better response time than VGA. And since your Matrox card has a maximum digital resolution of 1929x1200, and the expansion station does also, it should result in the best of all possible video worlds.
Just to let everyone know, I posted earlier about running 3 monitors with the D/dock on my precision M4300 running vista ultimate. I am now running 4 monitors on this laptop docked, and everything works perfectly (Windows Vista Ultimate x64, Aero works great, no more lag when dragging around windows as I mentioned before). It will hot undock/dock flawlessly and everything looks great. Nothing has changed from my previous setup except adding one more identical monitor to bring it to 4 total, and an Ergotron LX triple display stand which is great. Video card is a Jaton Geforce 6200 256mb DDR PCI. Please reference my previous posts if you're trying to do this and run into any problems, or feel free to email me at channelv@juno.com, since I don't frequent this page, then I will post back anything I can contribute to this board. I LOVE this setup!!!! It was fairly inexpensive to do, looks awesome and gets TONS of compliments and wows.
Here is a link of an obligatory picture of the setup for those of you who are wondering what a setup like this might look like:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3252769#post3252769
Anybody try to use 3 monitors with a Dell D830 docking station, but with nothing but DVI connections? I'd like to power 3 Dell 2408 monitors at native resolution (1920x1220), but using DVI connections everywhere. This is the same setup as Steve, except where Steve used 3 VGA ports (2 card based, 1 docking station based), I'd like to use DVI ports (2 card based, 1 docking station based).
Matrox offers two low profile graphics boards, the P690 Plus and the P650, both of which can achieve 1920x1200 resolution via DVI ports. So that woud take care of two monitorrs.
What I don't know is whether the DVI port on the docking station will work with the Matrox cards - can all three monitors run at the same time, or will I see BSOD's like Steve saw?
Awesome write up. Here's my question:
I have a D830 (w/NVS 140M) with the D/Dock station.
I want to run (when docked). The laptop LCD and 2 additional monitors. 20" and 19"
So my span would be:
Laptop LCD(1650X1080) + 20" LCD(1600X1200) + 19" LCD(1280X1024).
Can I do this without an extra PCI video adapter in the D/Dock? The D/Dock had a DVI and VGA port.
No you cannot do that, the internal laptop card only runs 2 monitors max. It can be one external and the laptop's own LCD, or two externals, but not all three. You would need to add a PCI video card in the dock.
Has anyone successfully done this with Vista?
the equipment:
D830 with NVS 140M
D/Dock with NVS 280
the span:
Laptop screen + external LCD + external LCD?
How would this be set up? 1 DVI from D/dock and the other DVI from the NVS280? or both external monitor from the 280 DVI?
Great write up! I also have a M90 with an internal NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M, a docking station w/ a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI running a total of 3 external monitors in addition to my laptop display. However, when attempting to upgrade from 2GB of memory to 4GB, I lose my external docking station PCI card due to insufficient resources. Ironically, by adding memory, I lose resources...
The extra memory does show up as 3.4 GB (the 32 bit chipset impact on total memory in this "supposedly 64 bit" machine has been fully discussed in other forums).
I can definitely use the extra memory for my Virtual machines, but do not want to sacrifice my displays. Can anyone verify that they are running an M90 w and additional video card w/ 4GB of memory? If so, please post which video card you added to your system.
Thanks,
Wiseguy
Great write up, unfortunately so far my experience hasn't been successful... I ahve the Precision M4300 with the Quadro FX 360M and to add more video I've added a Quadro NVS 280 to the D Dock.
Unfortunately after a few hours messing around, I've failed to get it working. On first boot I got nothing so I changed the video card priority in the BIOS to be laptop video first. This let me boot into Windows and Vista started installing the drivers for the new PCI video card. This is where the problems started. Shortly after the drivers were being installed the system blue screened with the following error:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
The two files mentioned looked to be the ones that had just been installed. Using the system restore I got the system working again, but trying the whole process again gave the same result. I changed the onboard video to use VGA instead of DIV and the two monitors on the NVS 280 fired into life and Vista booted. However, the monitor attached directly to the D Dock didn't intialise. Looking at Device Manager I can see that Vista has stopped the onboard video due to a problem. I tried to remove the device to allow it to re-install but this brought the same BSOD as above.
I've posted on the Dell forums with the hope that there may be an answer. I'm sure it's driver related and I might try XP if I get round to getting a spare HDD.
Nick
Damn, Nick, I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with Vista. I did buy the extra Vista hard drive as I mentioned I would above, and though I've installed Vista on it I haven't made time to install all my software on it--and so it is going unused at the moment. Consequently, I haven't yet run it off the D-Dock, so I'm not sure if it will work for me or not. Your post is depressing for me in that regard, but when I do give it a shot I'll let you know here.
I assume you've installed all the latest drivers and BIOS, right?
This really drives me nuts. Why all the problems with multiple monitors in the year 2008???
Good luck, Nick, and if you get it straightened out please let us know how.
Thanks for the reply Steve. I've now logged a call with Dell support on the off chance that they'll come up with a solution too.
Reading through the Dell forums yesterday it seems there is an alternative card that works in the D Dock, an ATI one. I guess this might have been a better choice as there is less chance of a driver conflict.
I've confirmed the file that was causing my blue screens was nvlddmkm.sys, so it's definitely the driver. A quick Google on that file name has brought up a lot of hits, so I'm going to start going through those.
Nick
I thought I'd keep you informed of my progress:
I failed to mention in my original message that I had the (A07) BIOS set to OnBoard Video, which worked fine w/ 2GB memory for pushing 3 external monitors (2 17s + 1 20 wide) in addition to the laptop display.
Dell opened a case and sent me a two 2GB replacement sticks to verify that I didn't have bad memory. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. The 2 new memory sticks results were the same message for the Docking Station Video Card.
"The device cannot find enough resources that it can use (Code 12). If you want to use this device, you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system.
I'm returning the replacement memory back to Dell and await word for next attempts. I'll post any new findings as they occur.
Thanks, Wiseguy...I (we) really appreciate it. Anything you can update us with can help others avoid a totally annoying and painful situation in the future.
Strange, too, what you're experiencing. I'm never surprised with such things, though. Never.
Here's the current status on my issue w/ losing my docking station PCI card when upgrading from 2GB to 4GB.
After following several different suggestions, I shipped my Video card and driver disk to Dell for them to test with. They are still working the issue. I have to say, they have been very good at keeping in touch via email and responding in no less than 2 days at the latest.
On another note, I have been successful in adding a 3rd monitor using a USB 2.0 VGA Display Port from EVGA. Using their UV Plus+ (UV 16 model), I am able to add a DVI connection w/ 1680 x 1200 resolution which works well with my 20" Widescreen LCD with 2GB and 4GB configurations on WinXP SP2. I haven't noticed any degradation in Video performance, but this is not a gaming machine, so your experience may be less satisfying than mine. At just under a hundred dollars, this may be a good alternative for those who do not wish to purchase a docking station and video card.
I'll continue to keep you informed on Dell's response.
I also have the problem with 4 GB RAM. A few things in device manager complain of not enough resources. Works fine with 2 GB, have not yet tried 3 GB. Please keep us informed of Dell's response.
I used a ATI HD2400 card because it has a current generation chip (Vista, DX10) and supports dual link DVI (required by 30" monitors). The D/Dock required some modification to provide room for the large heat sink. I have posted a few pictures here: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread217971.html
Dell was able to replicate the problem and found that the additional video card will not work on WinXP with 4GB of RAM, however it works fine with 3GB. They also loaned me an extra harddrive and caddy to test various operating systems (thanks to my MSDN subscription). Here were my results:
M90 in docking station with Nvidia Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI:
• Windows XP 32 bit: works with 3GB, Insufficient resources with 4GB
• Windows XP 64 bit: works with 3GB, Insufficient resources with 4GB
• Windows Vista 32 bit: Unknown (haven't tried this one and needed to return harddrive)
• Windows Vista 64 bit: works 2GB, 3GB, and 4GB
Considering that it works with Vista, I am satisfied that this is not a shortcoming of the Dell M90 or the docking station. I am very pleased with Dell's tech response as they have worked with me through this. Since I have duplicate setups of the docking station and video cards at work an home, I will most likely stay at 3GB and continue to use the PCI card expansion. The majority of my clients and coworkers are on XP, and I'm not sure of the consequences of running 32bit apps on my Vista 64 machine or devloping new apps for XP32 on a Vista 64. I was only getting 262KB of that 4th GB of RAM, and I hate to give any of it up, but...Oh, well. I'm sure I have a coworker who will be happy to add my lost GB to their machine. If I was stepping into this new and was aware of all of this ahead of time, I'd probably buy the UV Plus+ (UV 16) from EVGA or only purchased 3GB or RAM instead of 4. I hope someone finds this useful and can avoid uselessly spending money as they push their laptop boundaries.
Impressive mod, Kevin! I'm not familiar w/ the specs on the M65, but if you're already on Vista, I'd check on running a 64bit installation on it. Otherwise, I hope 3GB works for you.
Hey, thank you SO MUCH for posting this detailed information. I was experiencing the exact same problems. I have a Dell Latitude D630 with nVidia Quadro NVS 135m video card and was trying to use the PNY Quadro NVS 280 PCI card in the d/dock. Blue screens of death all over the place. Finally I left my latpop monitor off, hooked up an LCD to the VGA port and installed the drivers that way. Rebooted, and it worked! I then tried hooking it up to DVI like you did, and it still worked. Then I tried using my laptop monitor and 2 external monitors and it continued to work still.
It looks like as long as I didn't get a blue screen during the driver installtion, the drivers and graphics card works. Weird. I'm going to do some more testing and if I find anything else out, I'll let everyone know.