Laptop Dual Screen...

Hey wonderful hexus people,

basically my dad's friend has a problem with his laptop, in that he cant use both the laptop screen and an external TFT simultaneously.

He has an 'IntelliNote' Laptop with an Intel 82845 integrated gfx card thing, and is running Windows XP Pro. Basically he's moved from his old laptop (p2 machine with Windows98) as it was old and beginning to die, and ive sorted out other problems with his new laptop (networking and installing his other software and copying across files etc) but he needs the dual screen feature to work so that when he is talking to his clients he can look at his laptop while they look at a monitor facing them - much more professional than them perching over his shoulder!

anyhow, he also wants to be able to use the laptop with a projector he has (unsure of the brand, the TFT is an IBM 15" which my dad recommended and got cheap(ish) cos my dad works for IBM).

There is a button on the laptop (well Fn+F4) to switch between LCD screen and an external monitor, however this does not allow both tft+lcd to be on at the same time, there is an option within the Intel graphics options to have both displys (Clone display or similar) but that just makes a picture on the laptop.

Anyhow, i tried with a CRT monitor, and voila it worked. arse. why does it work with a CRT but not a TFT or the projector? I thought perhaps it was the resolution, the native res of the laptop is 1400x1050, but i was running at 1024x768 (which both the TFT and the projector support - when not doing the 'dual display' thing). I even tried 640x480 and that wouldnt work with both screens (TFT / projector).

Hope this makes some kind of sense, and i was wondering if there is any advise or tips or a solution any of you kind people could give me :)

if you need any more info just ask and i'll try to provide it.

Other than updated chipset and graphics drivers, the only other thing I can suggest is having a fiddle with Power Strip:

http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm

See what happens.

I was thinking of new drivers, might give powerstrip a go when i next to see him in soton... just seems odd that it'll work if you use the laptop+crt, but not laptop+anything else...

If you haven't looked for updated drivers, that should deffo be your first port of call.

Yeh deff try the new driver’s just one little thing. Have you tried using multiple monitors without the laptop being in windows? I have had many laptops and never had a problem with using both screens at once. I am mainly thinking of this because there are no drivers being used on boot up and therefore it should work on both screens, worth a try anyway.