Discussion: DIY

Buy your own gear cable and install it.

I can tell you how to do that if you can tell me how to get two monitors working on my new laptop :-)

have you got two outputs?

And typically I would diy this but I figure if one has just snapped I would be interested in someone looking over the others and I need a new chain too and might as well service the gears then too if doing all that... might as well just get someone to do 1 hours work on something which would take me alot longer.

Yeah it was set up for two back at Mirabela. Here's what I have:

Laptop
Docking station with several USB ports, DVI and VGA socket
2 x DVI cables
1 x VGA cable
1 x USB -> DVI cable
2 x monitors, each with a VGA and DVI socket

At Mirabela I distinctly remember one of the DVI cables was plugged into the docking station (cannot recall if it was via the USB port or the DVI socket) but the other end wasn't plugged into anywhere. I did manage to get it last night to a point where going into screen settings recognised that there were two screens but when I clicked on 'Extend this display', all that happened was that the screen I was working on reset to nothing (i.e. just a background display, no icons or anything) and then I had to unplug it all. If I play around with the plugs, I either end up with just the one screen working or I get one with 'no signal' and the other with 'cable not connected'.

To answer your question, there is a Giant store at the western end of Hay St (near Milligan St) and another bike store right next to it but I've never had anything serviced there so I'm not entirely sure if they have a servicing department.

Yeah giant and specialized are the stores I am looking at.

Well you'll need to connect one to DVI one to VGA. Once you get them both connected you'll need to make sure the monitors are detecting the correct input. Eg vga is looking for vga

Once you have that set hopefully you have some images on each of them then go to laptop right click desktop, graphics properties, then findoption to extend screens rather than duplicate which it uses by default. Hopefully that helps

I'll see what I can do. It's weird, I plug one into VGA and one into DVI and get one screen to work but if I restart, neither works until I unplug the DVI cable. If I plug it back in, the original screen is fine.

Any idea how to make one screen detect DVI if I already cannot see anything on that screen? Presently only the one plugged into VGA is showing anything. If I plug in the DVI cable and into the back of the second monitor, the first one decides that a cable is unplugged.

ah you might have one of those docks which says only the vga or dvi can work and thats why you also have a usb dvi.

In which case - use either the vga or the dvi in the dock and the usb to dvi for the second monitor.

I can get it to detect a second screen and even extend the display but it won't actually display anything. The second screen is listed as: Mobile PC Display rather than S240HL, which is what the first one is. I'm not good at this computer stuff although I can change a chain.

um it may be that the screen just doesnt have anything to display? have you tried moving a word document over the screens to see if it is connected?

It says no signal but I can move items off the current screen into nothing.

mm maybe your resolution is too high?

Its hard to tell without seeing it to be honest.

But the steps to follow are:
1) unplug everything
2) turn the computer off and on again
3) plug 1 monitor in and get that working with extend screen on either dvi or vga.
4) once above monitor working fine, then plug in second and systematically work through all remaining possible connections
5) if none work automatically then start 4 again and for each connection try adjusting the resolution for that monitor lower on the laptop - also play with the monitors source to see if it is cycling through sources correctly.

If this doesnt work connect your laptop to your tv and just have one big ass 2nd screen.

any joy?

tRicky has gone for a hill ride so he can pass out on the first rep and get run over, as pennance for shortening someones name in the enews article that was published today. I told him that he would be forgiven as it was checked by two other people (I was one) before publishing but I think at that point he was upset over the non-fiasco and rode off anyway.

No I was getting dizzy looking at the screen for too long so gave up.

Tash spent ages trying to figure it out but couldn't manage to. It doesn't seem to want to recognise the second device.

mmm weird - does happen but generally very rarely.

I have 3 screens at work, so often one of them has some issues. Did you try physically to unplug the electricity cables from the sockets of all monitors (try for 3 min at least while the laptop is turned. Off) then connect them to the socket and turn on the laptop, sometimes that will do the trick.