Thinkpads Forum

I've been searching and i've been able to find posts about connecting a 30" monitor to a thinkpad, but i haven't had any luck with finding posts about the possibility of running two 30" monitors off a thinkpad at full 2560x1600 resolution. Any ideas?

I've read through this post:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35941

and this post:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358

but i'm looking for perhaps a newer/easier solution. Does anyone know if it's possible to do this with relatively minor tinkering and a high success rate? cost isnt so much an issue, i'm ready to get a new thinkpad/dock and monitors as needed.

i'd appreciate any advice. thanks in advance.

I think that's going to be pretty tough to do with a Thinkpad. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure any 30" monitor is going to need dual DVI to drive a single monitor (e.g., I know the Apple 30" displays need dual DVI), so that means you'll need 4 DVI ports.

To get dual DVI ports you'll need the Advanced dock, as it has PCI Express slot that would allow you to put in a video card with dual DVI ports....but a card with four DVI ports? That's probably going to be some serious hardware. Also, the PCI express slot in the advanced dock only fits half size cards, so you're even more limited in your options.

I know there are extension cables that would allow you to externally hook up a larger graphics card, and if you built some kind of enclosure you might be able to do it, but I'm a little skeptical.

You may want to consult forum member RonS....he seems to pretty knowledgeable about the whole docking station/graphics card setup.

It's not actually dual DVI that's required to drive a 30", it's dual-link DVI. Double bandwidth still going through one DVI output port.

If the T60 dock is anything like the T40 one, it fits full-height, standard-length cards; the "half-length" specification simply means you can't use one of the super-long cards that overhang the slot at the back. (That probably rules out most of the "gaming" cards.)

If you can find a card with two dual-link DVI outputs that will fit in a dock that fits the T61p, you should be good to go. I haven't been keeping up to date, so I don't know what could fit the bill.

the advanced mini-dock can do 1 30" LCD. Since you need 2, you'd need the advanced dock to drive one from the T6x and a PCI-E card in there to handle the other LCD.

Would be a pretty sweet setup too Take pics when you are done.

ok - that's pretty much what i've read about when i've searched so far.

RonS seems to know a lot about it. Erik (moderator)'s posts have been helpful too. But I think the gist of everything i've read says that in order to run two 30" displays, you need to use an external card in the PCIe slot of the advanced dock. There's physical size issues with the PCIe slot and also on of Erik's posts says that "the card needed in the advanced dock must match the GPU in your T60p/T61p for the drivers to work correctly, plus the card has to be a half-height PCI express card with matching bracket to fit in the dock." This worries me b/c i was just about to buy an NVIDIA card that has two dual-link DVI ports.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html#pci

But I'm not sure what it means by having to match the GPU in my T60p/T61p.

Anyone know of any cards that meet this description?

Ideally i'd like to buy everything knowing that the setup will work fine, but i don't know anyone who's actually done this with a thinkpad.

i think he was talking about AERO working on dual displays. Then again having a nVidia and ATI driver in your system both at the sametime can't be a good thing right?

Ah - true. I'll do some more digging, but it looks like i might be resigned to getting a desktop instead that can run the two 30" displays.

Workstation grade cards can do 2 30" monitors - see the Quadro FX570 or the FireGL 3600.

thanks Andrew - I'll look into them. My problem is figuring out if they'll fit the advanced dock (since I dont have one yet).