how do i set up dual moniters on my laptop?

Question

i have a dell inspiron m1505 laptop and a compaq fs7600 CRT moniter. I am trying to set up dual monitors and I cant seem to get it to work right. I plugged the compaq into my laptop, downloaded the drivers and set up the properties and options like I wanted it through windows properties, however the CRT moniter will not show anything on the screen. It has power and recognizes signal (little green light does come on) and I can move the mouse "over" to the other moniter, but the screen is blank. What am I doing wrong? Is there some special thing that I have to do to get it to work? It shouldnt be this hard. Im not going with a seperate projection screen, but and extended desktop scheme and I cannot for the life of me get it to work. Any ideas?

Answer 1

First ensure that your dell can support dual monitors. If it has a seperate video CARD installed then you are good to go.
First make sure you have the second monitor connected to your laptop.
right click on the desktop and select properties. Now select settings. You should see two monitors. Do You? Ok, click on the the one marked "two" and check Extend my window desktop onto this monitor., box

now you may not see the wallpaper from your desktop but drag the properties window to the second monitor to see if you are configured correctly. You should be.

Answer 2

That monitor does not support very high resolutions.

1280 at 60 Hz
1024 at 75 Hz

Make sure that you are not overdriving the monitor.

Does the monitor work? If you unplug it do you get a "No Signal" message on the screen. If not, it sounds like it is broken.

Answer 3

go into your desktop.. right click, then go to properties. got to the settings.. there should be something saying about the next screen. Make sure you have both of them checked and then apply. you should see the screen come up.