Question

Here is the situation. I've been given a PC at a client site. It has a single monitor, however, I'd like to have another one since my work would go much faster.

I've been told that, no, I can't add another video card. But I can plug into the box anything external. So is there an external device that I can buy that would allow me to add the extra monitor?

Answer 1

you may use a USB 2.0 External Graphics Card, not really high powered 3D acceleration, but sufficient for normal office use.

Answer 2

There is the Matrix DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go. They take the video card's output and split it to two monitors. If I recall they are rather expensive (a couple hundred bucks). So you end up running the monitor at 2048x768 and drive two 1024x768 monitors. You will be limited what resolution you can run by the graphics card.

Answer 3

One option would be a mini USB monitor such as the one from ThinkGeek. Another possibility is to use MaxiVista, but that requires that you have another desktop or laptop. But these are not ideal; a budget video card replacement would still be cheaper, and possibly easier.

Answer 4

I have heard of external devices that can, in fact, handle this. It "tricks" the card into thinking there's, say, a widesceen display. I can't say for fact that it is cost-effective. I will look more.

EDIT: It looks like Matrox Graphics makes a products called DualHead2Go that does exactly what you want. Here is the link to the product page:

Matrox DualHead2Go

Hope it's not too costly for you! A con to this product, unlike the USB Cards the others have suggested, is that I do not believe you can use it will not add a separate screen, but rather refer to the displays as a single monitor.