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Surface Pro 2 on its way - need to connect to 2 external monitors

gregsedwards

New Member
The monitors are HP Compaq LA2306x models with Display Port (no pass-through), DVI, and VGA inputs. Can someone recommend a good solution to connect the Surface dock, so I can use them both? Thanks!
 
Lenovo USB 3.0 dock, has 2x DVI, Gigabit Ethernet and a bunch of USB ports. I use it with 2x Lenovo 24" screens on 1920x1200 .. works great ...
 
One off the Mini-DP Port and you will need a USB to DVI or VGA for the other...

Just a bit curious, isn't there some kind of limitation for a total of two monitor support? Hence if you want to use the Surface's own screen you can only have one monitor attached, I suspect I must have misunderstood something though.
 
I was asking because I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that it only supports a total of two monitors. Just don't know where I got the notion though.
 
Nope... I've run 3 monitors, one running off the USB port, one off the Mini-DP to HDMI.
 
You can have as many displays over USB, if I am not mistaken, as the USB solution has an integrated graphic solution inside. Hence, why the performance really not great from of these, but adequate for for desktop/office work, thought, which is more than enough for most.
 
When I setup my SP2 to use two external monitors, I wanted to run high resolution so I decided on using the Dell U2713HM monitors which support a native resolution of 2560x1440. In order to achieve that resolution, the monitors will need to connect to your SP2 using the mini-DisplayPort. With the DisplayPort 1.2 standard, it is supported to daisy chain monitors using the DisplayPort. So, the first monitor will connect to your SP2 using the DisplayPort Out to the mini-DisplayPort on the SP2 or SP2 docking station. Then daisy chain the first monitor to the second monitor using another DisplayPort connection. Also remember to configure the monitors to use DisplayPort connection via the on-screen menus.

I had to order a couple of DisplayPort cables via Amazon for under $10 each, but this setup works perfectly.

** Note - the reason for using DisplayPort is that DVI only supports a resolution of 1920x1080. If that is the desired resolution in your case then obviously you can use a docking station that supports DVI connections.
 
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