How do you hook up two monitors to a PC?

[highup]

Yup, that's what it looks like. I have 2 slots empty.

 

[carpetone]

Yup, that's what it looks like. I have 2 slots empty.

Is it the brown/black one that's occupied? or just some white ones?

If the black one is occupied, you can remove/replace the existing card in that slot with one that has the dual-monitor support as linked by Maven.

 

[FloorMaven]

... curious if it was something simple.

Simplicity is mostly relative, ya know. Unfortunately, it's not a plug & play deal. You'll need to disable the onboard graphics, download drivers and xp doesn't automatically support a dual configuration so may need to download that update. if u had a back-up computer with broadband I'd say get a Cheap card and give it a go. Otherwise I think you may invite more frustration than you care for.

 

[highup]

Is it the brown/black one that's occupied? or just some white ones?

If the black one is occupied, you can remove/replace the existing card in that slot with one that has the dual-monitor support as linked by Maven.

Yes, the phone line is connected to that.

 

[carpetone]

Depending on the OS configuration, on-board gpu can be superseded by one in the agp slot. The only problem is that it'll work poorly til the driver disc is used; the onboard gpu can be disabled anyways just to be sure and that's also a 2 step, 3 minute process. Dual screen config can be implemented once a supporting card is in there. As long as the new card shows us at least one screen, I'm confident we can help him get set up.

 

[carpetone]

Could you upload a photo of your motherboard's layout? Would help me determine how best to help.
The generic one I found doesn't show me all the additional parts from your machine and i'm terrible at imagining a layout.

 

[highup]

Could you upload a photo of your motherboard's layout? Would help me determine how best to help.
The generic one I found doesn't show me all the additional parts from your machine and i'm terrible at imagining a layout.

Motherboard looks just like the one you showed.
The brown slot in mine that is occupied is the small one on the lower left. The larger brown one above the three white ones is not being used.

 

[carpetone]

The large brown one is the one you want for a new video card. If you get one that's compatible with the agp slot, you can plug it in, windows should switch over to it from the on-board one, and from there, drivers, and a few graphics properties to be changed, and you're on your way to dual-screening.

 

[highup]

Glad to get the input carpetone and FloorMaven.
I'm not ready to do this yet, but when I do, we can pick up from where we are now. More bills coming in than money coming in.
Thank you both for the info.

 

[FloorMaven]

No problem...and FYI google's free pic program, Picasa, has the ability to view two photos side by side. There are other easy ways to do that as well.

 

[carpetone]

Happy to be of some help. Cheers.