Connecting laptop to projector won't dual monitor

mikew

Hi,
We are trying to connect an old laptop which has a VGA port to a projector (also VGA), but it doesn't dual monitor (i.e. the whole laptop screen appears on the monitor instead of just the 'live' screen). Are we missing something?

cowjam

You're likely to have a function button for toggling screen/VGA/both.  You'll have a function (Fn) button on your laptop and icons printed in the same colour on the keyboard (usually blue) are activated by holding the Fn button and pressing the key.

The monitor one is usually a rectangle, sometimes with lines on the left and right of the box.

Also, try the windows key + p (though I can't remember which version of windows that was introduced in).  

Finally, try right-click on the desktop and go to Properties.  Have a look for the tab where you control the screen - there may be an option in there for 'extend desktop' onto what it will call a second screen.

It'd help if you tell us what operating system you're using.

djdavidp

It is possible your laptop doesn't have dual screen capability. We have the same problem. My friend is busy rebuilding the church laptop (removing windows and putting Linux on, to speed things up), because the spare one I provided just didn't cope with dual screen - there were no drivers available even.
We are going to look into the possibility of buying a new laptop (the old one is about 10 years old) and for our easter services we are using our Puppet teams laptop, as that will run openlp (i look after the laptop so no problem using it)

mikew

Thanks guys.
It looks like djdavidp is right. It doesn't appear to be possible to use this laptop to dual monitor. Perhaps I should have checked that before upgrading the hard drive and ram! There's a lesson there somewhere.

wogster

It's possible that it needs a driver update, or there isn't enough ram assigned to video, to allow for dual monitor.  Unfortunately with Windows, they seem to quit updating drivers the day they stop actually stop making the chip.....

I would pick up Linux on boot enabled CD and see if it works with that, before I give up on it completely.  Drivers tend to keep getting maintained much longer, in the Linux world....

GermanGospel

First time I hear about a notebook that can only mirror the desktop. Which Windows version you are using?