Whether you’re a professional or just looking for a way to make your workstation more efficient, connecting external monitors to your laptops is a great option. In this article, we’ll outline the steps for connecting multiple monitors to a laptop in a matter of minutes.
4 Easy Steps:
- Determine If Your Laptop Supports Dual Displays
- Check If You Have the Right Cables
- Connect Two Monitors
- Configure the Dual Displays
Step 1: Determine If Your Laptop Supports Dual Displays
Not all laptops support dual monitors, especially for older modules. Before connecting your monitors, you need to check if your device can handle two extra monitors. To do so, follow these steps:
Check the graphics card
If your laptop has a dedicated graphics card, it’s more likely to support dual displays. If you’re not sure if your laptop’s graphics card supports dual displays, just search your graphics card name along with “specifications” on a search engine, such as Google or Bing, for more details.
If you don’t know which graphics card you have, here is how to check:
- Press the Windows logo key and R.
- Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.
- Double-click Display Adapters and you’ll be able to find the name of your graphics card.
- Type your graphics card name and “specifications” into a search engine to find out if it supports dual monitors.
If your graphics card does not support adding two external monitors, you can use a docking station – which can provide additional video output ports for your laptop.
You can also try upgrading your graphics card (which is not a common option for most laptops), or using a third-party graphics card such as Razer Core X Chroma Aluminum External GPU, but these tend to cost more and require technical expertise.
Check the available ports
Video ports are ports that can be used to deliver video signals. The most common ports are HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, and DVI port. If your laptop has two video ports, check what types of ports are available on your laptop to determine if it supports dual displays:
- HDMI and DisplayPort: Most modern laptops have an HDMI and/or DisplayPort, which can be used to connect an external monitor. If your laptop has both ports, it can add two monitors.
- Thunderbolt port: A Thunderbolt port is a high-speed port that can support dual displays. If your laptop has a Thunderbolt port, you can connect two monitors.
- VGA and DVI: If you’re using an older laptop that has a VGA or DVI port, it may not support dual displays. In this case, you want to check your laptop specifications to confirm.
Buy Extra Hardware If Your Laptop Doesn’t Have Two Ports
You need at least 2 video ports that can be used at once. If your laptop only has one video port, you’ll need to buy one of the following hardware:
A docking station
A docking station, such as this Dell USB 3.0 Ultra HD/4K Triple Display Docking Station, provides additional ports for your laptop allowing you to connect multiple devices to your laptop, including external monitors, keyboards, mice, and other accessories. Most docking stations provide multiple video output ports, such as HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI. If you don’t have two ports, a docking station might be a good choice to connect external monitors. A docking station often costs around $150.
You’ll need to check your laptop’s graphics card and make sure that it’s capable of driving multiple displays. Then, check the specifications of your laptop, the docking station, and the monitors you plan to use to make sure they are compatible.
One thing to note is that docking stations don’t come with cooling fans and they might heat up quickly, so they may not be ideal for long-term or always-on use.
An external display adapter
You can still use an external display adapter like this DisplayPort and HDMI Dual Monitor Adapter to connect two independent monitors to your laptop even if your laptop comes with only one port. External display adapters are easy to install – you just plug one of the supplied cables into your USB port to power the adapter and the other into your monitor video port to send the video signal from your laptop to the adapter.
If you don’t have the budget for an external adapter, a cheaper option would be a USB-to-HDMI adapter. Just plug the adapter into your laptop USB port, and attach a monitor to the other end. These adapters retail for around USD $50, but they might not be a great option for gaming or HD video playback because they don’t perform as well as a powerful graphics card or an external multi-display adapter.
A display splitter
A display splitter like this Newcare 4K HDMI Splitter, is a device that allows you to connect multiple monitors to a single video output port on your laptop. All you need to do is connect the splitter to the video port you have and then connect your monitors to the splitter. The splitter will then split the video signal into multiple outputs, allowing you to use multiple monitors with your laptop.
Note that not all splitters support extend mode – some only duplicate the video signal and display showing exactly the same thing on your monitors. So it’s important to choose a display splitter that is compatible with your graphics card and your monitors.
Step 2: Check If You Have the Right Cables
Once you’ve confirmed that your laptop is capable of adding external monitors (or you’ve bought additional hardware to support them), you need to check your monitors and see what types of video ports they have and see if you have the corresponding cable to connect them.
For example, if you have two HDMI ports on your laptop and two HDMI ports on your monitors, you’ll need two HDMI cables like this.
If you don’t have the required cable to connect your laptop to your monitors, or the cables you have do not match, you can either purchase adapters, such as a DVI to HDMI adapter or buy separate cables like this HDMI to DVI cable at less than $10.
Step 3: Connect Two Monitors
Connect your monitors to your laptop using the appropriate cables or adapters. If your laptop has two ports, just connect the cable directly to the laptop ports and the monitor ports. Otherwise, connect your laptop to the docking station or video splitter, then to your monitors.
Step 4: Configure the Dual Displays
Once you’ve connected everything properly, you’ll need to configure them to work together.
On Windows
- Right-click on your desktop and select Display settings.
- Under Multiple displays, select Extend these displays.
- You can adjust the display settings, such as resolution and orientation, for each monitor.
- Apply your changes.
On a Mac
- Go to the Apple menu.
- Select System Preferences and then Displays.
- Choose the display arrangement and configure the settings, such as resolution and orientation, for each monitor.
Hopefully, by following the steps we outlined here, you can get your external monitors working perfectly. Feel free to drop a comment below if you have any questions!
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