T60p Advanced Dock display options

[tvsjr]

Greetings all-

I've recently taken delivery on a T60p Widescreen (8741D4U, if memory serves) and a full-sized Advanced Dock... the company machine, complimenting my T60p 2623DDU personal machine!

We've recently moved, and my new office requires the dock to be further from the monitors... about 25 feet cable length. I'm currently running two 20-inch Dell LCDs connected to it - one DVI-D, one VGA. The DVI-D looks great... however, with that much cable length in the middle, the VGA looks very fuzzy.

I'm looking for a graphics card that is well-supported by the T60p and the dock. I've done some searching here and have seen that some people have no end of problems with dual outboard monitors plus the laptop screen... I don't particularly care about the laptop screen - I just need the two panels to operate. To complicate matters, I need a card that supports dual DVI-D.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Terry

[akhavan]

HI,,

Have look at this site. Although I'm not sure if you want to spent this much money.

http://www.digitaltigers.com/products.shtml

[tvsjr]

Umm, no. A dual DVI-D graphics card that will actually fit and work in the dock will be more than sufficient. I just don't know what will fit.

[sveintore]

Just a note, you have to shut down the computer to undock when using a display adapter in the advanced dock. (I've heard)

[tvsjr]

Just a note, you have to shut down the computer to undock when using a display adapter in the advanced dock. (I've heard)

If true, that's fine. I rarely dock/undock in the middle of the day... I have the laptop mainly so I can take it with me at the end of the day (when I'd shut down anyway) and use it on the road.

[tvsjr]

Well, since no one seems to be able to provide any info:

PNY GeForce 7600GS 512MB PCIe, DVI-I + VGA. Runs fine... one DVI-D monitor to the dock connector (onboard V5250), the other to the GeForce. Downside - the fan on the PNY card is god-awful loud.

VisionTek/ATI Radeon X1300XT 256MB PCIe, dual DVI-I. Dock/laptop never even sees the card. I expect the card isn't happy with the one lane available on the PCIe bus and is simply refusing to initialize.

VisionTek/ATI Radeon X1300 256MB PCIe, DVI-I + VGA. Runs fine... one DVI-D to the dock, other to the GeForce. It does have a fan on it, but it's not nearly as loud as the existing fans in the dock (which seem to get exceptionally loud when you add a PCIe card in... grumble.)

Two additional VGA monitors could be run off the 5250's secondary port and the X1300's secondary, but I have no need. Next step is probably to nix the dock fans and see how hot things get.