external USB 2.0 video card

Floody Boreland

Adding a second screen to my aging Dell Dimension E520 running 32 bit vista.Seems I need an external video card.
The monitors and the Dell have single VGA connectors.

Done a bit of searching but want advice from someone with a similar set up.
Will only be used for general internet and DVD watching not interested in gaming.

TerrorFirmer

Easiest thing to do is get a new graphics card. You can get a basic HD5450 or GT610 type card for about €25, and run dual monitors off that. If both monitors are VGA you'll probably need a DVI to VGA Adaptor as well for a few euro.

Do you have a graphics card in it at the moment or just the onboard graphics?

Floody Boreland

It's as it came six years ago just a bit of RAM added. Had intended to get a usb external card as I have no experience of poking about inside a computer.

TerrorFirmer

I would check out reviews on places like Amazon for external USB cards. Some are very hit and miss, but if they do the job they are obviously far less hassle than opening the computer for someone who'd rather not.

ED E

USB2.0 displays wont be fast enough for smooth video playback, you really only wanna use them for static content like reference reading etc.

Gotta hit USB3.0 or thunderbolt, which will require a new PCI card inside the PC anyways, so just change the graphics card.

RikuoAmero

Floody Boreland wrote: »

It's as it came six years ago just a bit of RAM added. Had intended to get a usb external card as I have no experience of poking about inside a computer.

Like the other guys have said, you'll want a cheap graphics card. This will be easy to do, open up your computer (most common method is taking off the side panel, and look at the inside, you'll want to look for slots like these



You may or may not have the same number of slots as pictured there, plus your slots may not be the same color.
Go to Dabs.ie, Elara.ie or Komplett.ie and look for the cheapest card there. Once you buy it, you'll want to put it in the top-most longest slot (if your top slot is short like at the top of the picture there, don't put it in there, you want the first longest one).
About your monitor(s), do you want to run two monitors via VGA both? If so, just so you know, you won't be able to play Blu-ray discs on the machine (Blu-Ray playback software demands you use DisplayPort, HDMI or DVI cables).
If you're not running two VGA monitors, you're good, but if you are, I can't think of any graphics cards that go in those slots that would have two VGA connectors on them (they pretty much have at most 1 VGA, plus a mixture of DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI). If you'll be doing 2 VGA monitors, you'll need to get a DVI-to VGA converter from somewhere. **DO NOT** get ones labelled as mere cables - they MUST be an electrical box of some kind, since they'll be converting digital signals to analog (DVI-to-VGA) and hence there must be equipment of some sort to process the signals.

Floody Boreland

Thanks RA, I bought a GEFORCE GT 610 card and installed it quite easily.

Is the original vga outlet now redundant? I had thought I could use it and the new outlet with two vga cables but it doesn't work that way.

My second monitor is a Samsung TV/monitor T24D391. This has DVI outlets too so I tried to connect that way to the new card but no dice. I assume this DVI is for TV signals alone.

It seems like I will need to buy another cable as you mentioned in your last paragraph.

RikuoAmero

Floody Boreland wrote: »

Thanks RA, I bought a GEFORCE GT 610 card and installed it quite easily.

Is the original vga outlet now redundant? I had thought I could use it and the new outlet with two vga cables but it doesn't work that way.

My second monitor is a Samsung TV/monitor T24D391. This has DVI outlets too so I tried to connect that way to the new card but no dice. I assume this DVI is for TV signals alone.

It seems like I will need to buy another cable as you mentioned in your last paragraph.

Original VGA outlet redundant, yes. With computers, you can output via *either* the onboard graphics or a card, but not both.
As for the Samsung monitor, are you sure you've got the right model? I looked it up, Curry's are selling it, and they don't list it as having DVI ports. It does have VGA and they do look somewhat similar to DVI. If so, then you should be able to connect your original monitor via VGA, and the Samsung one via DVI no problem. I've run multiple monitors before - I used to run DVI to one monitor, and then DVI-HDMI adaptor-TV (since TVs rarely have DVI).

Here's what a VGA cable looks like


and then DVI


VGA has 15 pins, DVI has more, that's an easy way to differentiate the two.

Floody Boreland

Just checked and it's two HDMI outlets on the Samsung. Should these work?

Sorted now

Thanks for the help RA was in the process of buying the adaptor before you posted so you saved me the money and hassle.