Thinkpad t61 Dual Monitors

Hey, If I get a t61 advanced mini-dock, can I have dual monitors as well as my 14.1" WS monitor (so 3 monitors) within Vista?

I have one monitor hooked up VGA at 22" (1680x1050) but I have INTEL INTEGRATED Graphics. I was wondering if I could get another 22" but on the DVI slot that the advanced mini-dock brings.

 

bump...

For clarity it's the Intel X3100 graphics card that I have.

 

I was under the impression that you can only use 2 displays at any given time.

ie. you can choose to use 2 externals or 1 external + notebook screen

 

The GMA 3100 is a DualHead card. This means it supports two displays at most.

On the plus side you can use two displays in any configuration you want.

This includes dual 22" LCDs if you like, although you need to disable the built in LCD for this to work. This is all easily managed with presentation director (Fn+F7). Just create a custom profile with two external monitors (DVI and VGA), disable the laptop LCD, and tell it to extend the desktop across both external monitors.

If you want to use multiple external monitors AND the Thinkpad LCD, you will be better served by a product like the Matrox DualHead2Go. This fools your computer into thinking multiple external monitors are a single display. However, this device does have some significant downsides. Because it is a single display to Windows you can't maximize to just one monitor, nor can you have one monitor Left of your Thinkpad and one to the Right. Also, it is VGA only and this may not provide the best quality at high resolutions. Further, it may not be able to support two 1680x1050 displays.

Addition - There is a DualHead2Go Digital edition. This uses DVI and supports two monitors of 1920x1200 each (up to 3840x1200 total) and should work fine with the T61. However, this is a substantially more expensive solution as you will need BOTH the dock (for the DVI) and the DualHead2Go to get all three displays working simultaneously.

 

Thanks! that's pretty helpful