Using an external monitor

basicly, I would like to use an external monitor, and my laptop display at the same time (laptop as primary, other monitor as secondary). But when i plug it in, it gets no signal except on boot up where it mirrors the laptop screen. Windows doesn't seem to detect it, even though I can switch between them using Fn + F3 keys, I can do the same in nvidia control panel, it allows me to use one or the other but not both. And when i run the check to look for external monitors it doesn't find any, so is it possible to do this? I was doing the same before with 2 monitors on a desktop but haven't tryed this with a laptop before.

 

ah, a dual monitor setup
I would say that your gcard doesnt support it...but..Dual Nvidia Go 7950GTX 512Mb in SLI most certainly supports it
might be a laptop problem
one moment while i google...
http://freepctech.com/pc/001/guide_dual_monitors.shtml
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/twomonitors.mspx
http://www.digitaltigers.com/sidecar_us1-sidecar1.shtml?gclid=CICUrcfjwZECFQd6Igod5R-KOA
there, three different things that i found on it, but em, i dont see why it wouldnt just work with your outputs, read the guides and if that doesnt help it might be a hardware issue ora defective part, then again, there may be a program needed

 

Also try checking the BIOS. Some have a tickbox to allow using an external monitor.

 

I'm pretty sure I've heard that SLi does not support dual monitors.

I could be wrong, but I'd disable one of your GPUs and then give it a try and see what happens.

 

SLI should, one for each monitor, if not, then nivida has done something seriously wrong

 

I looked in the BIOS and there wasn't any option to enable dual monitors, since both work up till windows kicks in, im leaning towards it being my video card drivers (using 169.25 forceware), anyone know any incompatabilities with dual monitors and forceware drivers?

And I'm pretty sure this can support dual monitors, since even if an mxm 7950 can only handle one connection, there is two in my laptop

 

I didn't mean that the video card(s) can't support or handle dual (or more) monitors. I meant that I heard SLI doesn't support it, as in the drivers.

Digging around for a moment, I found this. Scroll down to Caveats (don't know how to link to a certain part of a page, sorry).

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the way SLi splits the screen between cards... Nvidia really should figure out a way to fix it. But what can you do.