I’ve always struggled with adding an additional monitor to a desktop PC. The flat screens are getting so cheap that is often makes sense to have two monitors giving you a lot more desktop real estate. Adding a monitor and extending your Windows Desktop is easy with a laptop since most have a monitor port, but doing that with a desktop normally involves opening the case, installing a video card, and then getting the BIOS to handle them both affectively. Not a huge deal to do if you are computer geek enough to handle it, but there has to be an easier way.
Recently I ran in to a USB device that allows you to plug in an additional monitor. We now have 3 of them and they work great! No need to open up the PC case and install a card then fight with the BIOS. The device is a small box (2″x 2″x 1″) that comes with the drivers and a retractable USB cable. No need for an AC Adaptor since it draws power from the PC. The installation is simple; just install the drivers and plug in the USB cable and you have an additional monitor.
You can add up to 4 of these devices giving you 4 monitors on your system. Pretty cool. We have used them on widescreen 19″ flat screen digital monitors and they have been working great. The device even included an adaptor to handle digital or analogue monitors so they should work with pretty much any monitor you have.
I picked up an EVGA UV12 Plus+ USB VGA Adapter which could handle the monitor resolution I needed. If you have a really large monitor you can get the UV16+ model that can handle higher resolutions. http://www.evga.com/uvplus/
