Hi Czuadhon,

With the add-on card installed, does the integrated port work at all?

Nope..

i guess both port is not working at the same time..

i guess i should choose one out of 2 .. either add-on card or intergrated card?

 Vostro is not supporting dual monitor setup, otherwise i missed some configuration..

please let me know..

My video card is

PNY GeForce 210 1GB PCIe Graphics Card

http://www.staples.com/PNY-GeForce-210-1GB-PCIe-Graphics-Card/product_868141?cmArea=SEARCH

i looked a your card and it looks like it has three outputs. 1 VGA, 1 DVI and 1 HDMI. What you need to do is connect one monitor to the VGA output and one to the DVI output with a DVI to VGA adapter. Most cards will come with one. Then you need to open the Nvidia control panel and enable the dual monitor support. 

We have two Dell Vostro 230 towers at my office, and I'm attempting to connect them to two monitors. The graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 310, monitors are both Dell E2310Hs.

The VGA port came covered in a cap with a 'no stopping' sign on it, and the port itself is not responsive to any monitors - all monitors connected to it don't recognise their (different) VGA cables. I'm told the monitors originally came with the DVI port adapters through which their single monitors currently function.

The Nvidia control pattern doesn't see anything not connected to the DVI port, even when searching aggressively (or whatever the phrase is). It seems we've been sold computers with disconnected internals.

Please tell me our office hasn't given Dell all this money for towers with 3 video outputs which include graphics cards with 3 video outputs, only to discover that only one of the outputs was ever meant to work.

Hi Westoriacapital,

Are you trying the VGA port on the motherboard or the VGA port integrated into the motherboard? Perhaps you could post a picture showing which ports you've tried.

Hi Osprey4,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean - I haven't opened the tower to check whether the graphics card is connected to the tower's VGA port or the motherboard's internal is connected to the tower's VGA port. Is that a necessary step? I'd prefer to avoid it on account of never having opened a computer in my life.

I can take a photo of the back of the tower if that helps? Otherwise, is it relevant that I've found the tower's VGA port will work (on a terrible resolution) if I swap the BIOS video settings from PCI/PEG to IGD (but other ports will stop working and no graphics card errors will pop up)?

If the answer is that the motherboard's internal is connected to the VGA and the graphics card is connected to only the DVI and HDMI, will connecting the second monitor via a VGA-to-HDMI or a DVI-to-HDMI work? I can't imagine those cables costing more than $30, which would make it the cheapest solution.

Thanks again!

Circled in red below is the integrated VGA port. That port may or may not work. Circled in green is an expansion slot where your video card should be. I'm not sure what ports you have there, DVI plus HDMI, possibly? If that's the case, you could use both of them, with only a DVI-to-HDMI adapter needed to connect to a monitor.

You cannot use the onboard video connector and the add in card at the same time. If you need two monitor support it must come from the addin card only, Like  Osprey says.

Oh I see what you mean, the back of the tower is segregated by component - I thought the whole thing was one piece. So those four spaces at the bottom are slots, and they'll have different ports depending on what's been inserted, like a wifi card or a graphics card?

No wonder the VGA port was meaningless. I'll go ahead and buy that cable. Thanks osprey4, Davet50 and everyone else!