› Knowledge Base › Technical Tips. To display different things on two or more displays, you need to extend your screen to the other monitors. Under Settings > System > Display.
 
 

How to Connect Multiple Display Monitors Using Your Laptop.3 Easy Steps to a Dual Monitor Setup in Windows 10

If you have multiple displays, you can change how they’re arranged. This is helpful if you want your displays to match how they’re set up in your home or office.

In Display settings, select and drag the display to where you want. Do this with all the displays you want to move. When you’re happy with the layout, select Apply. Test your new layout by moving your mouse pointer across the different displays to make sure it works like you expect. After you’re connected to your external displays, you can change settings like your resolution, screen layout, and more.

Windows will recommend an orientation for your screen. If you change the orientation of a monitor, you’ll also need to physically rotate the screen.

For example, you’d rotate your external display to use it in portrait instead of landscape. Here’s what you can choose. See your desktop across multiple screens. When you have displays extended, you can move items between the two screens. Troubleshoot external monitor connections in Windows. Troubleshoot connecting Surface to a second screen.

Connect Surface to a TV, monitor, or projector. Simply Windows on Youtube – These videos are only available in English. After you’ve connected your Windows 10 PC to external displays, you can adjust the settings for each one. One downside to this is that these displays are few and far between.

Furthermore, they are far more expensive than their non-MST counterparts. This is because they tend to be considered professional displays. That is why they typically have enhanced features such as color accuracy. This daisy-chain option is usually best for professionals. Especially those that require high video standards, like photo and video editors. Also, take note that your laptop must have a discrete graphics card with more than three external displays.

This is because most built-in graphics usually supports up to three displays only. You should check your laptop’s specific model before committing to any purchase. Now, whether you choose the MST hub or the daisy-chain method, setting up your monitors is easy. You only need to plug and play, and you’re ready to go.

Automatic detection of these screens works well in Windows. Go to the Display Settings menu to change the monitor placement. Then, scroll back up to the Using Your Laptop Screen as a Second Monitor section and follow my instructions for each display. Multiple displays aren’t just for bragging or a conversation piece. You can use it at work to improve your quality of life. In addition, it will increase your productivity. Additionally, it will be a great entertainment and gaming rig.

Ports on the rear-left side of an Acer Swift 3 laptop. Laptop connected to an external monitor. DisplayPort and Thunderbolt logos. Triple monitor setup on a laptop at SpaceX. Clean dual monitor setup. Setting up one or more external monitors on a Windows 10 system is done in System settings. To see the options, click Start to open the menu, then choose the Settings app. When it opens, look in System settings for Display. This is the same place where display resolution and orientation are located.

At the bottom, options are shown for multiple displays. There are four different options for how the displays are used. The first, ‘PC screen only’ will ignore the second monitor and show only the laptop screen. Choosing ‘Duplicate’ will show the same content on two or more displays. However, if using only the bigger monitor is preferred, ‘Second screen only’ will allow that, using only the second monitor and turning the laptop screen black.

When using a Windows 10 laptop with the most popular multiple monitor option ‘Extend,’ it’s important to align the displays. Display settings will show the virtual displays side by side and number them.

These numbers can be displayed on each physical monitor’s screen by clicking the ‘Identify’ button. Aligning the numbered displays that appear in Display settings will make the mouse pointer movement track appropriately. Otherwise, the mouse movement may appear to jump to an unexpected position, when it reaches the edge of one monitor and appears on the next.

– Can i extend my laptop to 2 monitors

However, USB video-out adapters basically function as their own low-power graphics cards, and they have a bigger hit on system resources like processor cycles and RAM than a standard external display. Most laptops will start to show serious performance issues if you try to add two or more monitors in this fashion.

We covered this briefly under Thunderbolt, but a docking station is a popular alternative to multiple adapters for power users. USB-only alternatives are available, but generally less powerful—more expensive options offer more flexible video ports. A model-specific expansion dock with multiple video outputs might do if you want to keep your laptop mobile with the minimum amount of setup and teardown time at your desk. A more specialized version of this idea is the external graphics card.

These gadgets are really cool, because they let you hook up a full desktop-class GPU to a laptop and output to as many monitors as that card can support—usually three or four, for the mid-range options from NVIDIA and ATI. They also require a USB 3. We select and review products independently. When you purchase through our links we may earn a commission.

Learn more. Windows ». What Is svchost. Best Fitness Trackers. Best SSDs for Gaming. Best Budget Speakers. Best Mobile Hotspots. Best Speakers.

Best Ergonomic Mice. Photography Lighting Kits. Best Smart Sprinkler Controllers. Best Noise Cancelling Headphones. Best Online Backup Services. Best Budget Smartwatches. Before you start shoving wires into ports in the back of your PC or the sides of your laptop, stop and take a closer look at those ports so that you know what you’re looking at.

Modern computers handle video via an HDMI port, but older computers feature a variety of other ports:. Many computers include a mix of these ports. Examining the back of your desktop PC or the side of your laptop, you should see one or more of them. Typically, if your computer has two ports on it, the video card should be capable of sending an output signal to both.

If there’s only one port, then it probably can’t. However, your desktop might have available slots for additional video cards. So, even if there’s only one port on your desktop, don’t hesitate to pop the cover and check for any available slots for another video card. When it comes to laptops, another option is to purchase and use compatible docking stations. You may have a docking station option that could extend your laptop which may only have a single video port , into a docking station that features two or more ports.

So, even if you only have one video port available, definitely research the graphics cards if you want to set up a dual monitor laptop. If you have two ports, but you can’t seem to get both ports to work at the same time, the next step is to determine if your video card even has the ability to display to multiple monitors.

In the display settings, you may actually see the multiple displays come up, with some disabled and others set up as either your primary display or as an extended display. You can ignore those for now and instead click on Advanced display settings at the bottom of this window. On the next page, you should see Display information for each connected display if your graphics card “sees” the number of monitors that you’ve plugged in.

If you only see one, then you should quit here because even though you managed to connect multiple displays, the card is only able to utilize one at a time. Much of your success in this comes down to hardware capability, so checking this first is the most important thing. We only recommend products we believe in. Products that work. But, just so you know, we may earn commission in doing so.

Lillian Lai. But how to connect external monitors to a laptop? This article introduces an easy and clear guideline to connect two external monitors to your laptop. Generally speaking, most Windows laptops now support dual monitors, at least.

But you need to make sure your laptop is capable to add two external monitors. And that depends on your Windows operating system, the capability of your graphics cards and drivers. First of all, you may need to make sure your graphics card supports multiple monitors. For example, if you are using the NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, you can check it out on the official website , and click your graphics card, and check the specification, then you will see if it supports multiple monitors.

If it does not support adding multiple monitors, you may need to buy and install a correct graphics card e. Then you may need to check the ports on your laptop. Generally, a computer or laptop should include any of these four ports:. Display Port can provide an interface with optional audio high-definition content protection.

How to Connect Two Monitors to Laptop.

 
 
Best Home Theater Systems. What if your laptop lacks a bunch of external video ports? Some laptops will support two external monitors if you can find a way of plugging them in. If those multi-port docking stations are just too much money for you, there is a cheaper option. Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. A USB display connection is available on several monitors, and there are also many portable USB displays on the market today. For instance, if you want to run a 4K monitor and a 1, x 1, monitor simultaneously, make sure to link the 4K monitor to the video connection, which will allow the highest, and ideally native, resolution to get used.