Dual Monitor?

Hello everyone. I'm in the process of switching from windows. I've been on the forum for a few weeks now and decided on the 20' imac for my wife and a black macbook for myself (really both for me lol). Can you do a dual monitor setup with the 20' imac? I've been to 4 different apple stores and had 2 yes answers and 2 no answers. Either way im still getting one for my wife ;D . Just curious to the correct answer...

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Yea you can.
Bryan

Can you elaborate on how?

I bought a mini dvi to vga adapter for my 17" i-mac
I hook it up to another monitor but mostly my 42" LCD Panel tv. Click DISPLAY icon at the top right toolbar/Detect displays I then turn off mirroring so I can have a separate desktop.You can also choose where you want your second display in relation to the mac monitor then just drag stuff off your main screen towards where you want to put it on your second monitor.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=E7DCFA7F&nplm=M8639G/A

yea i did the same thing to my 32inch LCD and it wokrs great. Comes in real handy for editing.

thanks. glad to hear of someone actually doing it. how can an employee at an apple store tell me that it woulnd't work???

thought they knew everything about macs...

jtjumpshot said:

thanks. glad to hear of someone actually doing it. how can an employee at an apple store tell me that it woulnd't work???

thought they knew everything about macs...

Click to expand...

I don't think that it's a very common setup. Sometimes you just have to cut the Apple Store guys a little slack. They are, after all, retail employees. I'm sure they do their best most of the time. Perhaps the one you spoke with was working at the Gap just a few weeks ago.

"Support for external display in extended desktop"

For a real look at specs, this is the best:

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

I am having issues with getting my dual monitor setup working. I have them plugged in together with the VGA display adapter. I have gone to the display settings and tried to find the spread across to both screen feature I've heard someone mention and I don't seen anything along those lines, I am not sure what all i have to do to get the setup so I can use both monitors as one desktop, and what not, I am using them for video editing. Please someone let me know as soon as you can... Thank you so very much

Matt

In The Display window how many squares can you see - each square is a monitor. Hit detect button as well. I have the DVI interface rather than the VGA so not sure it makes any difference. I have a 22" hooked to a 24" iMac. What version of OS are you running?

One odd thing is that a picture cannot span two monitors so you may think they are not connected but can you move the mouse from one over to the other and still see it? Tell us more.

I am running OS 10.4.10

Thats the thing, I have one both monitors showing the desktop the same desktop though not splitting it or nothing, so what im doing on one I am doing the same thing on the other. Thats why I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong, or what I am not doing..

Sorry I haven't responded faster...

mdr_productions said:

I am running OS 10.4.10

Thats the thing, I have one both monitors showing the desktop the same desktop though not splitting it or nothing, so what im doing on one I am doing the same thing on the other. Thats why I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong, or what I am not doing..

Sorry I haven't responded faster...

Click to expand...

depending on the version of iMac you have it may not be able to do screen spanning out-of-the-box. I'm not certain when they changed it but I know most of the past iMacs could only do Mirroring. You can get a program called Screen Spanning Doctor that will make it so you can set it for screen spanning.

jtjumpshot said:

thanks. glad to hear of someone actually doing it. how can an employee at an apple store tell me that it woulnd't work???

thought they knew everything about macs...

Click to expand...

Haha, I can relate to this, Alot of Apple Employees dont know what they are saying, and well...lets just say the genius's at the genius bar arent the brightest!

But i do agree with Others....cut them some slack, i mean overall there just retail employees. And they do get most of my questions answered.

Surfing under HELP, it has something to do with the VGA connection. I have connected via a mini DVI and it is not an issue. It seems (under Help) to be a mirror by default when using VGA.