[Bad boy Warrior]

I have an old Dell Optiplex GX270 (not the tower), with an AGP graphics card NVidia Geforce 6200. Im trying to setup dual monitors (so i can extend my desktop to the other monitor), but it doesnt seem possible at the moment as reading around some suggest when you insert an AGP card it automatically disables the built in graphics card so you cant run two monitors.

Does anyone know of any other techniques to get this done? I checked the BIOS and nothing there that seemed to be of an interest to run to monitors - both monitors work individually but the second monitor is not listed at all.

Thanks

[Ponch]

Bad boy Warrior, on Dec 4 2009, 02:01 PM, said:

reading around some suggest when you insert an AGP card it automatically disables the built in graphics card so you cant run two monitors

Does this apply to your exact model or is this just a "rule". If so it's not true. You should have two monitors listed in Display Properties Settings (when they're both plugged and ON of course). If not, you might have to reboot but I'm not sure.
I remember I once had a PCI card disabling the internal onboard PCI card, but with AGP it was ok.

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

Bad boy Warrior, on Dec 4 2009, 07:01 AM, said:

it doesnt seem possible at the moment as reading around some suggest when you insert an AGP card it automatically disables the built in graphics card so you cant run two monitors.

I manage a network that still has quite a few GX260/270s and i can confirm that the onboard video os not available when using and AGP (or even an on PCI) card you will have to use an AGP card that has dual head if you want 2 monitors configured independently (ie side by side) if you want to display the same image on 2 or more monitors you can sometimes use a simple VGA splitter but those setups are rare.

[bonestonne]

Matrox Dual/Triple Head 2 Go systems.

i've seen people use them to extend SLI across three 19" LCDs. 4800x1200px resolution. i'm sure it can handle larger, that's just the biggest I've ever seen.
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USB VGA adapters are becoming more common, but unless you need a card that's low profile, I'm sure you can pick up a dual head AGP card...I had an ATI 9650 I think it was? I put it into my older sisters computer a while, ago, but it's dual head. VGA, DVI and even has S-Video out.

This post has been edited by bonestonne: 06 December 2009 - 11:50 PM

[puntoMX]

Bad boy Warrior, on Dec 4 2009, 07:01 AM, said:

I have an old Dell Optiplex GX270 (not the tower), with an AGP graphics card NVidia Geforce 6200. Im trying to setup dual monitors...

That makes me wonder as most nVidia 6200 card shave dual outputs, so one VGA and one DVI connector at the back, like this. The only thing you need when both screens only have VGA connectors is a DVI to VGA adaptor or cable. So, how does the back of that video card look like?

bonestonne, on Dec 6 2009, 11:49 PM, said:

Matrox Dual/Triple Head 2 Go systems.

i've seen people use them to extend SLI across three 19" LCDs.

Matrox doesn't call that SLI, that's nVidias own .

[bonestonne]

O_o i didn't say it was for SLI...i said you can use it to extend it...