External / laptop video adapters

[DevilsPGD]

My girlfriend's desktop just bit the dust. Both video cards have blown
capacitors, and even after installing a known good video card, I'm
getting a video card related beep code error.

The current assumption is the motherboard, but regardless, we're looking
at using her laptop as her primary machine since it turns out her laptop
actually has more CPU and faster RAM then her desktop did, and I've got
a spare 7200rpm laptop drive I can toss in.

The one holdback is that she really likes having dual 22" 1680x1050
monitors.

Her laptop has one VGA output, so we're looking for a solution to give
her a second monitor.

Anyone ever used a eVGA UV Plus+ UV16 <http://www.evga.com/uvplus/> USB
Display adapter? Any thoughts? I'm having trouble finding any reviews
that go discussing why you'd want a second video card -- What I'm
curious about is performance, I'm not expecting gaming performance here,
but will it handle Aero, Photoshop, and/or movie playback?

The other option is to wait for a XG Station, although for the prices I
can find online in AU, we could probably repair her desktop.

 

[Paul]

My girlfriend's desktop just bit the dust. Both video cards have blown
capacitors, and even after installing a known good video card, I'm
getting a video card related beep code error.

The current assumption is the motherboard, but regardless, we're looking
at using her laptop as her primary machine since it turns out her laptop
actually has more CPU and faster RAM then her desktop did, and I've got
a spare 7200rpm laptop drive I can toss in.

The one holdback is that she really likes having dual 22" 1680x1050
monitors.

Her laptop has one VGA output, so we're looking for a solution to give
her a second monitor.

Anyone ever used a eVGA UV Plus+ UV16 <http://www.evga.com/uvplus/> USB
Display adapter? Any thoughts? I'm having trouble finding any reviews
that go discussing why you'd want a second video card -- What I'm
curious about is performance, I'm not expecting gaming performance here,
but will it handle Aero, Photoshop, and/or movie playback?

The other option is to wait for a XG Station, although for the prices I
can find online in AU, we could probably repair her desktop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16815101001

"Pros: Quick and easy setup. Does 1680x1050 on a 22" for a GREAT Price!
Cons: NOT FOR GAMES AND VIDEOS. But for almost everything else, no problem!"

The protocol used over USB2 is a form of lossless compression.

http://www.displaylink.com/pdf/DisplayLink DL-120 and DL-160.pdf

Another option would be a Matrox DualHead2Go adapter, which takes
one video connector and splits it into two side by side displays. But
that also requires the display output on the computer to run at
a pretty high bandwidth. Easier to do with digital outputs, than with
analog. I suspect the digital output would have to be in Dual Link
mode on the connector, and I don't know how common that would be
on a laptop. It might be more common on modern video cards, so
this product is an outside possibility.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/compatibility/gxm/resolutions/

Some kind of compatibility checker, here. You run this on the laptop,
and it tells you what is possible.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/drivers/download/gxm/tool/

An article on the DualHead2Go on Anandtech. This is an early article,
when only the analog version existed. There are at least four versions now,
two Dual head and two Triple head. The digital one can pump more
pixels, with the right driving source. Anandtech also has a TripleHead
review, but it is for the analog version as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2621&p=3

There is also the Villagetronic card for a PC card slot. Full screen
video might be a stretch for this thing as well.

http://www.villagetronic.com/vtbook/index.html

The Villagetronic thing has been around for a while. The current
packaging looks slightly different, so hard to say how it has
evolved since 2002.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?sitesize=yes&i=1681&p=5

Another VTBook review here.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=383&type=overview

Villagetronic also appears to be offering a product like the
EVGA one, based on USB2 and compression.

I still haven't seen anything for ExpressCard slots. ExpressCard
has USB2 wires and also PCI Express x1 wires. Anything that uses
USB2 from the slot, would be a waste. It's a question of whether
someone will ever whip together something like the VTBook, that
can tap into the 250MB/sec slot bandwidth of ExpressCard.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Actually, there is another one, but it never made it into the market.
Asus made a box that holds a graphics card, and a cable runs off and
connects to an ExpressCard slot on a laptop. This allows adding a
"real" graphics card to a laptop, with the limitation of an x1 PCI
Express connection.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-the-asus-xg-station-external-gpu

Magma is another possibility, as they do have a product version, that
runs from Expresscard to an expansion chassis. This isn't likely to be
cost effective, but it's potentially another way to gain access to a
regular video card.

http://www.magma.com/support/drivers/expresscard/index.html

Just grabbing a spec at random, this one offers a Cardbus interface
card, and an expansion chassis with one PCI slot. But for $1100, you
could buy a new laptop... It's too bad their pricing wasn't more
progressive. Everything seems to start at $1000+. Now, if these
guys had patents of some sort, that might explain why the Asus product
didn't make it out of the gate.

http://www.magma.com/products/pci/1PCI/pdf/1SlotPCI_ProductBrief.pdf

Paul

 

[Guest]

My girlfriend's desktop just bit the dust. Both video cards have blown
capacitors, and even after installing a known good video card, I'm
getting a video card related beep code error.

The current assumption is the motherboard, but regardless, we're looking
at using her laptop as her primary machine since it turns out her laptop
actually has more CPU and faster RAM then her desktop did, and I've got
a spare 7200rpm laptop drive I can toss in.

The one holdback is that she really likes having dual 22" 1680x1050
monitors.

Her laptop has one VGA output, so we're looking for a solution to give
her a second monitor.

Anyone ever used a eVGA UV Plus+ UV16 <http://www.evga.com/uvplus/> USB
Display adapter? Any thoughts? I'm having trouble finding any reviews
that go discussing why you'd want a second video card -- What I'm
curious about is performance, I'm not expecting gaming performance here,
but will it handle Aero, Photoshop, and/or movie playback?

The other option is to wait for a XG Station, although for the prices I
can find online in AU, we could probably repair her desktop.

What video chipset is on this laptop? If it's relatively recent you should
be able to run its lcd and external VGA as two separate monitors. The
trick in most cases is to find and (re)install the right video driver. See:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp#Laptops

 

[DevilsPGD]

What video chipset is on this laptop? If it's relatively recent you should
be able to run its lcd and external VGA as two separate monitors. The
trick in most cases is to find and (re)install the right video driver. See:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp#Laptops

It does, but that wastes a huge amount of the most valuable desk space,
and also the laptop's monitor is far smaller, so it's the worst of the
various solutions, although it's the current short term solution.

 

[DevilsPGD]

http://www.displaylink.com/pdf/DisplayLink DL-120 and DL-160.pdf

Another option would be a Matrox DualHead2Go adapter, which takes
one video connector and splits it into two side by side displays. But
that also requires the display output on the computer to run at
a pretty high bandwidth. Easier to do with digital outputs, than with
analog. I suspect the digital output would have to be in Dual Link
mode on the connector, and I don't know how common that would be
on a laptop. It might be more common on modern video cards, so
this product is an outside possibility.

I looked into this at one point, but the laptop only has analog/VGA out,
not DVI out, and dual 1680x1025 seems to be beyond it's capabilities.

There is also the Villagetronic card for a PC card slot. Full screen
video might be a stretch for this thing as well.

We're already on ExpressCard, so this one doesn't look like an option.

I still haven't seen anything for ExpressCard slots. ExpressCard
has USB2 wires and also PCI Express x1 wires. Anything that uses
USB2 from the slot, would be a waste. It's a question of whether
someone will ever whip together something like the VTBook, that
can tap into the 250MB/sec slot bandwidth of ExpressCard.

It looks like the XG Station is the answer to this particular need,
although it's availability seems to be nonexistent.