Connecting monitor to laptop

[Mieran]

Is there anyway of connecting a monitor to a laptop and use that as the main screen?

For example, when I turn the laptop on I want the external monitor to come on not the built in one.

[J222JRA]

Dont all laptops have a connection to connect to an external screen? Mine does via a serial port connection.

[Aly]

I used to do this when I hadd me EEE PC Mieran.

Well for a start find out the connection.
It's either DVI:

Or the older style VGA:


Some Laptop's/PC's now come with HDMI, there is no real need since DVI can transfer the same amount of data that HDMI can.

Your laptop will have something like this in it's graphics settings:


This is on my PC so it is just a single display.
However if you connect a monitor into your laptop it will pick it up.

You can have the option of setting the monitor as the main screen, turning off the laptop screen.

Two Warnings, one is very very important.
1) Make sure you don't set a resolution that neither the laptop nor the monitor can handle, I've done this is the past.
2) Running both screens at the same time can make laptop run very slow depending on the perforance.

Hope this helps.

[Mieran]

cheers aly

as soon as i plugged the monitor in the laptop recognised it and said if i wanted to use external display only so i said yes and it worked, vista is not that shit after wall lol

[Bound]

Originally Posted by Mieran

cheers aly

as soon as i plugged the monitor in the laptop recognised it and said if i wanted to use external display only so i said yes and it worked, vista is not that shit after wall lol

Yeah - It's literally a case of plugging it in (be it laptop or desktop), only thing too consider, like Aly said, is if your laptop has VGA or DVI out, even then it doesn't matter because you can get adapters for a few quid.

Nothing too it mate.

I guess the only detail you can add is if you want the second screen too duplicate (pointless) the main screen so you've got the same thing showing twice, or extend your windows desktop so it functions as a second screen.. Which you do, lol.

[Aly]

Originally Posted by Bound

I guess the only detail you can add is if you want the second screen too duplicate (pointless) the main screen so you've got the same thing showing twice, or extend your windows desktop so it functions as a second screen.. Which you do, lol.

Just repeated what I said just there really.
I wouldn't want to be doing this either, unless you have a high end PC like I have your PC/Laptop will not be able to do a task like this.