Dual Monitors? Show me what you use.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to red_stapler :

It amuses me how many of the admins I've worked with over the years that generally work exclusively with Word documents, yet not one of them has oriented one or both monitors in a vertical position.

When I used to have 2x 27" monitors, I had an old 17" oriented vertically between them. Unfortunately 'old' was the main thing about it and I could never get it as crisp or as bright as the newer ones.

Honestly on a typical modern monitor you can see 2 whole pages anyway. 
 

In reply to Duke :

Yes, I know.  In engineering, an ever increasing amount of my work is done in Word (yay, MasterSpec... ) and other formats that seem like they might be better suited to a vertical format monitor - like Procore... but since I often have multiple documents open at the same time and the majority of my work is done in drawing/modeling programs, I deal with slightly smaller document views.  If you had told me 26 years ago when I started in this business there would be times where I would spend the entire work day writing, I would have said you were crazy.  And after typing that, I just realized I've been doing this work for about half of my life... 

Thanks for the info. 

The second screen isn't going to be a working screen. It is mostly going to be used for reference so I dont have to keep flipping back and forth between windows. 

I have a 27" monitor at home I'm not really using at the moment. I'm going to set it up on an arm and see how I like it. 

My home office. Need more monitors.

Home office #2. Enough monitors for one laptop plus video editing. 

https://www.theonion.com/coworker-with-two-computer-screens-not-berkeleying-around-1819573756/amp

j_tso said:

I tried orienting a 2nd LCD like that for a big spreadsheet, but looking back and forth gave me a headache.

It sucks for spreadsheets that have any appreciable number of columns.  For word docs I find that 2x will fit nicely side by side on a 16:9.

The most compelling reason to go vertical is for old arcade game simulation.

I occasionally will turn a monitor vertically if I'm working on writing a process or procedure, or if I'm working on a spreadsheet that has few columns but many rows. 
 

That said, I've found it to be relatively rare that it is beneficial to me. Most of the time I can fit 2 pages in one window of word anyway. 

I like using powershell on a vertical monitor as it saves a ton of scrolling when you're executing a lot of commands.

I use three 24 inch monitors. I keep Outlook, Teams, etc... on one so I can pop in and out of meetings and converse while actually working. 
The center screen will typically have the primary work application running: Excel, Word, Oracle or SolidWorks. The other will typically have reference information: spreadsheets, drawings, photos, or interwebs.
 

Sometimes on extra special days, I have spreadsheets on all three monitors at once. 

So, I've run into an issue. 

The monitor is mounted and hooked up. I've gone into the setting to set up dual monitors. The second display isn't working. 

I don't have two HDMI outputs on the video card. I have hooked up the second monitor using a VGA to HDMI adaptor. 

I can't find any information about hooking a 2nd monitor to the Radeon R5 340 video card I have so I'm not sure it will support the second monitor. 

Any input would be helpful. I think I'm going to be buying a video card. 

Switch the monitors, make sure that you can get the second monitor to work as if it was the only monitor.

Then, did you go into display settings to make sure the settings are marked for extended displays?

I just checked the build date of my one monitor:  August, 2008.  It's a 19" Dell that I got free from somewhere.

Now, both my kids, well they've got some nice dual-screen setups with competent 24" monitors of recent manufacture.  Such a setup was deemed "necessary" during the school-at-home covid nonsense.

Kids get cutting edge.  Dad gets whatever hand-me-down junk still works. 

In reply to mtn :

Yes. The second will run as primary. The primary wont run as secondary. 

I don't think I'm getting anything out of the cable. Currently waiting on Best Buy to open so I can pay way too much for a vga to HDMI adapter instead of the vga to HDMI cable I ordered Friday. 

VGA or DVI?  It looks like that card has a DisplayPort and a DVI output.  

I have 2x 32's on my desk with a docking station for my laptop at home and 2x 27's with a docking station at work. I don't know how anyone was ever able to get anything done with a single monitor anymore 

Toyman! said:

In reply to mtn :

Yes. The second will run as primary. The primary wont run as secondary. 

I don't think I'm getting anything out of the cable. Currently waiting on Best Buy to open so I can pay way too much for a vga to HDMI adapter instead of the vga to HDMI cable I ordered Friday. 

Our Ace Hardware actually has a decent inventory of such stuff... 

On the Dell WD15 docking station, I have to run different cables for each monitor - one VGA and the other is HDMI.  I tried using an adapter to the other display port, but it didn't work.  It also took some futzing with the display confogurations to get everything to play nicely together.  Unfortunately, that was over 2 years ago and I don't recall the specifics, although I'm sure it varies by computer. 

My setup:

- 2 x 27" MSI monitors from Costco
- Cheap Vivo mount from Amazon
- Dell D3100 docking station

Its run from my Dell laptop, but I really do not use that screen.


 

Problem solved. Just needed the correct adapter. This is going to take some getting used to. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

On the Dell WD15 docking station, I have to run different cables for each monitor - one VGA and the other is HDMI.  I tried using an adapter to the other display port, but it didn't work.  It also took some futzing with the display confogurations to get everything to play nicely together.  Unfortunately, that was over 2 years ago and I don't recall the specifics, although I'm sure it varies by computer. 

The first dell thunderbolt dock I had, which was somehow worse than the one I have now, had 4 video outputs.  All 4 of them were different types.  Wtf.

Display Port, Mini-Display Port, HDMI, and VGA.

ProDarwin said:

 

...I prefer to have matching monitors.  Mismatched sizes/resolutions drives me a bit crazy...

 

I now understand this. The 32" monitor with the 27" second monitor was irritating. I ended up working on the second screen more than I thought I would. Differing font sizes was a bit of a pain. 

It turns out that 2 - 32" monitors will fit on my desk. While the second monitor isn't exact, it is the same brand, resolution, and size.  I think I'm going to like this better. 

Currently I'm on three monitors, one is vertical. I'm a tech writer and the vertical space is MUCH more valuable than a wide screen. I do love my wide screen for video editing though. I'll be upgrading one of these monitors to a 32" and putting them all on the wall when I get finished building my dedicated office. 

The awesome dude next to me is my son doing his school work.