How do you run 3 moniters? 2 17"s and a 22"

[thespeakerbox]

I have viewsonic 2 VP171b's that I love. These monitors are some of the best saw when buying a couple of years ago, and i dont want to let them go.

I would like to also buy a 22" or 20" widescreen and put all three on my desk. Is this a silly idea? I would ideally like to put the larger monitor on the sides. I've seen dual monitors up to 24" , but never three monitors. Anyone seen anything thing like this? How is it done? Do you think it's a good idea?

I didnt buy a video card(s)? for the new build yet (p5b deluxe, 2x 16x pci-e slots), so if thats something to help me to achieve a 3 lcd setup, im open for suggestions.

 

[Lonyo]

Multiple cards (not SLI).
Same manufacturer might work best (i.e. 2 nVidia or 2 ATi cards), then you set up in the driver control panel.
You just hook up all 3 to the various outputs, and then set it up in the drivers, it's entirely possible and reasonably easy to do.
A 20" monitor would be the best fit for dual 17"'s (same physical height, AFAIK).
If you want to use the larger screen for most things (gaming etc), then hook it up to your main graphics card, and probably hook up a second monitor to the same card (I have noticed issues when moving the mouse from a monitor on one card to another monitor on a different card), so put 2 monitors on your main graphics card if possible.

Didn't really play about at all with triple monitors because a) the "practice" monitor i was using was really bad (backlight dying), and I couldn't get my secondary card drivers to install (Matrox G400 + 7800GT, Windows didn't like the Matrox drivers).

 

[n7]

Let me warn you that you may be in for a challenge.

I used to run 3+ displays on my A8N32-SLI Deluxe via a PCI-e X1900 XT + PCI 7000. Worked quite well.

But then i got my current P5B Deluxe.

I spent an insane amount of time trying to get two different cards to work, all to no avail.

I tried my PCI-e X1900 XT + the PCI 7000, PCI 9250, PCI-e X1300 Pro, & PCI-e 6600GT, & i couldn't get any combination to work.

Basically either Windows would show the secondary card as having a "Cannot start" error, or the system would freeze just before loading the desktop.

I tried a ton of different drivers, no drivers, switching X1900 XT to secondary, & all kinds of bullsh!t.

In the end, i gave up.


In theory, you should be able to run a secondary card in the 2nd PCI-e slot or PCI slot, but it seems that only works on some motherboards.

 

[note235]

matrox triplehead?