Asus VX2 and Dual External Monitors - Confirmed!

Hi all,

Well, I had asked in another thread whether the Asus VX2 could handle 2 external monitors (via the dvi and vga ports). Lots of speculation, no definite answers...

Until now! I figured the only way I'd find out was to test it myself. I bit the bullet and bought the VX2 last week. It arrived yesterday and one of the first things I tried was to hook up my two 22" LCD monitors to it. And it worked!

One screen is attached to the dvi port, one to the VGA port. Both are independent screens, giving me a total of 3360x1050 resolution.

The way I did it was to right-click on the desktop, and bring up NVidia's Control Panel screen. From there select Display->Change Display Configuration. The drop down box shows all possibilities of 2 monitors:



Selecting both externals turned off the laptop display, and turned on the two LCDs. It was fantastic!

One issue I found, however, was that the vga port is right next to a little "jut" in the frame housing the ps2 and ethernet ports. As such, a normal VGA connector doesn't fit flush with the laptop, making for a loose connection. The first image shows the vga port and the "jut":



This next image shows the vga connector being partially obstructed by the "jut".



Fortunately, I'm using the docking station, so this problem isn't a killer for me. But it seems like an engineering oversight...

Hope this helps!

-Peter

 

just out of interest, what would you do with the extra screen, the only thing I can think of is may be playing Supreme Commander, i.e one screen zoomed out on the whole map, one screen for local battles.....
congratulation on getting a brilliant laptop anyway.

Jc

 

Can you do triple monitors and use the interval one as well?

 

Good find!

Now that we have one more person with a VX2 how do you like it? How is heat and fan noise in particular? THX

 

I want to be able to say more, but I've only used it minimally, and I have to ship it back (it had 3 bright pixels, so I'm taking advantage of the zero bright dot warranty).

I watched a movie on it last night, and the fan noise wasn't noticeable, but I wasn't thinking about it either. I did notice the wrist pad area was barely warm, which is much better than my older laptop (a Sager 5680).

Unboxing the thing is a real experience, though. Ubercool already talked about the very nice box it comes in, plus the velvety bag, plus the protective sleeve, plus the beautiful carrying case. It's hard not to be impressed by it.

The mouse feels cheap, though. But it's bluetooth, so that's a plus. I haven't been able to configure the fingerprint scanner yet either - 80% of the tries fail to get a good read.

Anyways, when I get the laptop back, I'll try to do a full review.

-Peter

 

I wasn't able to, but I didn't really try that hard. I was more interested in dual external screens. I'll unpack it tonight and see what I can do. The NVidia control panel only does 2 screens, and the windows display properties dialog only does one external, and the laptop lcd. Maybe the combination of the two an get something working...

-Peter

 

See, for most of the current, higher-end laptops, two external displays isn't really a big issue so long as you aren't planning on using the built-in one at the same time. Most of the current laptops can do that with the right combination of adapters. The real trick is whether it can do three. My V1J can see three display devices (DVI, VGA, built-in LCD), but can only use two of those three at any time.

 

I haven't tried 3 displays yet, but reading this on nVidia's site makes me doubtful that it's possible:

Notice horizontal/veritcal spanning for only up to 2 monitors, or up to 16 monitors for Quadro GPUs only.

Doesn't look good...

-Peter

 

Need to try this on my V2J but I sold my old dual 2407 setup...

I know for sure it didn't work on my A8Js.. i could only get clone mode on both monitors.

 

Ah, well, if flash-mods still exist, it might be possible.

I think someone managed to get one of the ATIs to detect as a FireGL. This might get a bit interesting if flash-modded FireGLs can support more than 2 monitors...

 

Whatever the true limitations there are it's in hardware. You're limited to however many DVI/VGA transmitters there are on the video card.

 

Um theres an experiment here in the forum that shows the a8js cannot drive 2 distinct external monitors. The external monitors have to be mirrors. Most laptops are the same way.