Nvidia GeForce GT 240M to 3 external monitors?

Question

I have an Acer Aspire 8735G-6502 that has an Nvidia GeForce GT 240M chipset and only one VGA port for an external monitor. I am looking to set it up with something like 3 external monitors, but I don't know if this is possible.

I have seen solutions like plugging in USB->VGA adapters (with devices like Iogear GUC2015V), but I don't know if the refresh rate on the monitor would be so great under those conditions. Would the refresh rate be bad on those monitors plugged in through USB? I don't need it to play games or anything, but if moving the mouse around my desktop is laggy that would not be awesome. Would all the graphics processing in this case be handled by the CPU?

Really the goal is to close the laptop and tuck it away and use external mouse/kb and have the 3 monitors, so any solutions/ideas in that area would be appreciated.

Answer 1

USB video performance is poor at best, the problem is that USB itself doesn't have the bandwidth to carry a video signal above 640x480 without compression.

Arstechnica posted a review on a 14" 720p USB monitor today. The reviewer didn't comment about any sort of lag, but one of the commenters said he's used a pair of their USB-VGA/DVI adapters and they lagged badly scrolling a browser. You're probably going to have to wait until USB3 versions come out for satisfactory results.

Answer 2

This sounds like an application much better suited to a desktop computer with multiple video cards, but if this isn't an option, your only real option is to use the USB->VGA adapter. I haven't used one, so I can't speak to the refresh rate, though.