Tri Monitor Setup

[dustrman03]

Is it possible to have a 3-monitor setup? I currently have 2 (R50 screen and Samsung 912n) screens connected.

I am also wondering (while it may be very simple) how to have the windows task bar be displayed on both monitors.

[basketb]

yes, but you'll need additional hardware. There are a couple of options (though I haven't tried either yet):
1. Get a DOCK II and a "suitable" graphics card (search around here to see what setup worked for people).
2. If you have a spare laptop or desktop available, then MaxiVista (discussed here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... timon.mspx ) may work as well for you.

[schen]

These days, the solution may actually be cheaper than you might think; even on a laptop. A lot of that has to do with the fact the the "full dock", which for the later (post T2x,30 and A31/R30-40) machine can be had for well less than $50 these days. This dock gives you a half-length PCI expansion slot. There is a variety of things you can do with that, but there's a number of display adapter cards that can be found for next-to-nothing that will handle 2 displays. Since it seems that your criteria is more oriented toward desktop area, as opposed to video performance, your solution is even more simple.

There are a number of multi-headed adapters from specialized manufacturers such as Appian that are really cheap, especially since they often appear on the market (read eBay) as OEM versions to major manufacturers such as Dell and HP. These adapter typically use a chipset from a major video card producer such as ATI and therefore Windows will have built-in drivers.

From there, all you really need to do is to set the option in the BIOS to have whichever adapter you want to boot first then let Windows handle the rest. A little know feature of Windows going back to W98, has had to ability to resolve up to 10 displays (as long as you have room both internally and externally for the hardware).

So for the price of an inexpensive dock, plus an inexpensive multi-headed adapter should give you a situation where you can have 3 displays (including the laptop) rather easily.