Dell Latitude E6430 Docking Station + Dual Monitor + Laptop Screen Tri-Monitor setup
- by Larry
I have a company issued laptop and docking station as well as two monitors The specifications of the hardware are as follows;
Laptop: Latitude E6430
BIOS: A02.00
Processor: i7-3720QM CPU @ 2.60 (8 CPUs)
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Page file: 1825MB used, 4793MB available
DirectX 11
Display Driver/Chip: MVIDIA NVS 5200M
DAC: Integrated RAMDAC
Aprox Total Memory: 2376
(Above 3 details same for both displays)
Current Display Mode (Display 1): 1600x900
Current Display Mode (Display 2): 1440x900
the docking station is a Dell Latitude E6420 Docking Station PR03X Port Replicator
and I don't think the monitor model is particularly relevant to resolving this issue but they are both Acer V193Ws
The story goes like this;
the laptop works fine
if I VGA one monitor into the laptop through the vga port on the back of the lefthand side of the laptop I can achieve dual monitor display fine (laptop screen + monitor)
if I plug the laptop into the docking station and use the vga port in the back of the docking station I can dual monitor fine (laptop screen + monitor)
if I plug the laptop into the docking station, the laptop's lefthand side VGA port no longer seems to function at all
I've spoken to internal IT about this issue and they're going to get me some kind of VGA splitter or a DVI-VGA adapter to use with the docking station for the second Acer Monitor, but that isn't going to happen for a few days.
So I guess what I'm wondering is; is there any way to continue to use the side VGA port on my laptop while using the docking station VGA port?
and as a secondary 'followup' pending resolution of the initial issue with getting both monitors up and running (at the moment I have both monitors on my desk but am just using my laptop screen as one of my dual monitor display with one of the monitors [the one connected to dock]), is there any way to CONTINUE to use my laptop monitor to in effect have a triple monitor display (2 monitors + docked laptop)? I am wondering this because internal IT told me that they were aware of some issues with the particular display drivers in my box and triple monitor displays but weren't really going to look TOO much in-depth into that (which is perfectly understandable) since getting the adapter for the dual monitors up and running was the greater priority within their purview.
So this is a two parter;
Can I dual monitor using two vga cables with 1 docking station vga port and one laptop vga port? is there a setting that can be tweaked somewhere? because plugging the box into the station seems to make the side port stop working
and...
Is there any reasonably simple and cost-effective work around (e.g. I am find with shelling out maybe a few dollars out of my own pocket for some hardware or software to make my company box tri-display capable) but if this requires some extensive rebuild or new OSs or doing stuff to the BIOS I'd rather have a straight answer about this being untenable as a slight modification to a (once again) company laptop and stop wasting time looking into it
Thanks! and please let me know if you guys need any more details (tech specs or something) to answer this question
[EDIT] 2/10/2014
Just an update; turned out it really was just a hardware limitation issue. The old laptop just couldn't hack it. Got a new laptop with a better video card and different monitors from my company and am successfully using a triple display currently (2 monitors + laptop screen)
