DetWing:

Please note that the only PCI card validated by Dell for use with the C/Dock II device is the Matrox Millenium PCI video card.

Is the C/Dock II the same as the D/Dock?  I was under the impression that the docking stations for the new D-Series models were totally different.

DetWing

The D/Dock is different than the older C/Dock II.  I have been looking for a compatible low profile/half size dual display PCI card for the D/Dock.

So far a Matrox G450 MMS and an Appian Typhoon Dual DVI-I PCI ATX Card have failed miserably.

Anyone had any luck?

I've not installed this one personally, but one of my fellow tech guys here at our office said he has his D/Dock running smoothly on a PNY nVidia GeForce FX 5200 w/128 RAM PCI card.  He knows his stuff so I trust that it works well.  I plan to get one soon and see for myself.  Worth a try.

Good luck,

DetWing

I'm trying to get a PCI video card to work in my D/Dock so that I can connect my 2 external monitors. I have a 21" CRT, and a 20" LCD so I kind of would like a DVI connector, but the PNY card you listed only has 2 VGA connections no DVI.

I've called up Dell's Gold Technical Support like 4 times in the last 2 weeks trying to get some help with this, but we haven't gotten anywhere yet, and the techs don't have any experience with this. Last guy I talked to, Eddie, said he was going to try and contact one of the trainers to see if he would know anything about this.

I have tried two different PCI video cards so far in my docking station, and they both have the same result. Dell even shipped me a replacement docking station thinking maybe I had a bad one, but it didn't work either. What happens is when I install a PCI card into the docking station and plug the power cord back into it, the orange light comes on like its suposed to. Then I dock the laptop and hit the power button. Then all the lights go off on the docking station, which is REAL bad. The only reference to all lights going off on the docking station is when there is no power supplied to it. As long as that PCI card is still in the docking station, you can unplug and replug in the power, anything, but that orange light will never come back on until you physicly remove the PCI card from the docking station. We confirmed the PCI slot did work by installing a PCI network adapter into the slot, and it functioned correctly.

The two video cards that I bought and tried are a Chaintech FeForce 4 MX440-8X PCI card (P-G486), and a eVGA GeForce2 MX 400 (064P1NV39A). The eVGA card is listed as one of their BestBuy products on their website, and the Chaintech card is listed on their site und PCI Video Cards.

Now, believe it or not, I actualy have two options for dual displays. I can either use PCI video card (yet to prove), or I could use the video card on the laptop. Mind you, both have thier problems, but you might not have heard of how to use both DVI and VGA ports on the docking station for two external monitors.

I have a Latitude D800, which has an onboard GeForce 4 4200 Go card in it, which supports dual displays, and the docking station itself has two connectors on it, a DVI and a VGA... so I connected both my external monitors to it at first, because a 'sales rep' said it would work. Well, it didn't, at least not the way you'd expect. After playing with it for about oh maybe several hours I did actualy get it to display on both external monitors, to my amazement, and to the tech I was talking to on the phone at the time.

I have a Dell Latitude D800 with the 15.4" WXGA+ (1280x800) LCD, with a GeForce 4 4200 Go video controler, running Windows XP Professional.

The process by which I found it to work is as follows:
Connect both displays to the docking station, dock the laptop with the lid closed (which turns off the laptop LCD). You can turn on the laptop using the power button on the docking station. Then using an external keyboard (PS/2 only, USB keyboards don't work for this), press Scroll Lock + F8, which does the same as Fn + F8 on you laptop keybaord to switch displays. Now while you have the laptop LCD closed and you press that button it will switch between the two connected external monitors. Switch it to the one connected to the external LCD (DVI port), then open the display properties, and go to the setting tab. You should see a second display that is greyed out right beside the primary one. If you don't see two displays you might have to reboot the computer with both external monitors connected to it. Here is the tricky part. If you try and attach the display now it won't do anything, but if you open the laptop, and then attach the second display it will extend your desktop to the external CRT (VGA port). Why it doesn't work when the laptop is closed I don't know, but that at least shows its possible.

When I talk about attaching or unattaching displays, I don't mean physicaly, I mean from the display properties. Under the settings tab if you have multiple monitors physicly attached to your computer you should see a couple boxes with numbers on them. If you right click on one of those boxes, you'll have an option called "Attached", and that's what I'm refering to. The "Attached" option is the same as the check box below on the setting page called "Extend my Windows desktop to this monitor.", its just shorter and easier to say.

Once you have enabled both external displays you can close the laptop display, but make sure you have it set to not do anything when you close the laptop in your power options. By default its set to go into suspend mode if you do. Now, if you do close the laptop, and you reboot your computer, you'll have to open the laptop and reattach the secondary display like you did before once the computer comes back up. If you leave the laptop open, you can reboot and it will stay on both external monitors. You might see the windows startup on the laptop screen, but the Windows login will be on the external LCD (DVI port), and once you login, your second monitor (VGA port) will show your desktop.

You can reboot the computer and everything while its still docked and everything remains happy. Its when you start undocking and docking that things get messy, and since the reason why you are using a laptop is probably so you can undock and redock its a pain.

If you do decide you want to undock the laptop and use it while its undocked, MAKE SURE you unattach the second display from the display properties FIRST! This is a must unless you want enjoy getting frustrated. Now if for some reason you feel rebelious or just frankly forget to unatach the second display before undocking, then you get lots of extra work once you want to dock next time. Even if you just click the Start button and click Undock Computer, and never take the computer out of the docking station, you still screw the dual external display setup. So its VERY important to unattach the secondary display from the display properties BEFORE you undock.

Now, if for some reason you end up undocking without unattaching as far as I have been able to figure out you have to shutdown your computer, dock it, close the lid, start it up, switch the primary display to the external LCD (DVI port), the open the lid, attach the secondary display, reset your resolution, and refresh rate for your monitor and you are back in business.

If you are consistent, and remember to always unattach before you undock, then when you redock, all you have to do is go into the display properties and reattach the secondary monitor and everything is happy, no rebooting, nothing, just happieness, or as good as it gets anyway.

I don't know if the docking/undocking issue is a Microsoft, or Dell issue, but its rather anoying that you have to unattach before you undock.

If for some reason you get a half white half black screen on your laptop LCD at some point then you have to reboot your computer to fix it. I think if you hibernate your computer it might come back to normal. If you get this when you try to attach the second display, unattach the second display make sure the external LCD (DVI port) is the only display showing anything, then reboot the computer and try to attach the second display again, and it should work. Don't worry your laptop LCD isn't fried, the computer just needs to shutdown and turn back on.

If you see some nv... something or other program crash then its time to reboot your computer, because nothing is going switch displays right until your reboot your computer.

If you get extreamly frustrated with your laptop while trying to get the computer to display on the monitor you want, and you take it out on the Fn + F8 key switching monitors... if you push it repeatedly too many times too fast, you can cause your computer to blue screen. :-)

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_apr&message.id=524
Somebody made a post claiming to have the following working with two external monitors

- Latitude C810 - WinXP
- D/Dock
- Appian Typhoon PCI
- Dell P990 (analogue monitor 19')
- Dell FP2000 (LCD 20")

Does the C810 use the D/Dock or does it use the C/Dock?

Here are a couple other threads where people are talking about video cards in the D/Dock or trying to connect two external monitors. It seems there are hundreds of threads about people using the C/Dock with different video cards, but finding threads about the D/Dock is a bit more sparce.

Using two external monitors with a D600 and D/Port replicator
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_apr&message.id=1072

D/Dock with dual monitors
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_apr&message.id=1069

D800 with D/Port or D/Dock: DVI max. resolution?
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_apr&message.id=1073

Can someone verify that the ATI RADEON 9000 64MB DDR TV DVI PCI card will work with a C\Dock II and a C640.

I saw in this forum and a couple others that it is supposed to work, but have not seen a definite YES.

I have tried these two cards and the Pine one worked, but only off and on.  There were driver conflicts and now it never works.

1.  Pine - 3D Phantom XP-PCI2800

2.  Jaton - 117PCI-16

The Jaton does not work at all.  The device will not even start in WindowsXP.

Has anyone found a complete list of supported PCI cards with these docks?  Please let me know!

I am running a 90 WT Power Supply, so that should not be an issue.

Thanks!

Dieken

I would help, but I only have a D/Dock, and have yet to find a video card to work with it.

But I would like to note that Dell has released some new BIOS updates for both the D800 system that I have and the GeForce 4200 Go, along with some new drivers for the GeForce 4200 Go. Since I have tried these updates multi display support from the docking station is now much easier. I can now dock the laptop with the station without having to ever open the laptop, and as long as I don't ever open the laptop while it is docked it will dock and undock perfectly without me having to do anything, and it switches great inbetween.

One problem I've run into since I updated the BIOS and drivers is that TV out doesn't work any longer when my laptop is undocked. I am now using the A05 System BIOS and A05 graphics BIOS.

If you are docked and you need to setup dual head, first make sure only one monitor is active. Then you can go into the display properties, hit the advanced button, go to the GeForce menu and under "nview Display Mode" you can click the "Device Settings" button and "select output devices" then switch between "Digital" (DVI), or "Analog" (VGA) connections to be the primary monitor. Once you change the primary display, then you can ok back to the display properties, and atatch the secondary display, and it should work fine. I've had it work flawlessly under any circumsance I've tried it with.

I have now noticed that the "nview Display Mode" menu item in the GeForce menue under advanced display settings disapears once you are in a multi display environment. Once you are in a multi display environment, that menu item gets replaced by a new one "Device Selection" which doesn't quite give you the same control as the "nview Display Mode" but is somewhat similar. I've also found that when the laptop is undocked the "nview Display Mode" menu item is replaced by something like Flat Panel Display Settings or something similar sounding where you can adjust how your laptop's LCD scales different resolutions on it.

Has anyone received an answer yet about D/Dock's supporting Video cards yet?  I have a D400 and what makes this problem even worse is that it doesn't support ANY wide format resolutions even for an external monitor (which I find amazing for a very new computer!!!).  I have tried multiple video cards and only one works - an OLD Number Nine Revolution V video card.  None of the new ones work.  Could the Dell support person monitoring this forum provide some guidance?

With my D800, once they released the GeForce4 Go BIOS update A05 I have been able to operate dual external monitors flawlessly with the D/Dock docking station's DVI and VGA ports. No strange problems or doing strange things to make it work, just plug the laptop in any old way to the docking station and you can switch monitors all day long in just about any fashion from the windows Display Settings and nVidia Properties dialogs.

Since your D400 doesn't have that capability, it looks like you are forced to look at a PCI video solution for your docking station or another NEW alternative. There is a brand new, just realeased last August CardBus video card that is capable of running up to a resolution of 1600x1200 at full 32bit color! It's call the VTBook by Village Tronic http://www.villagetronic.com/e_pr_vtbook.html and it looks like a pretty solid solution too. I've fired off a few emails to the company and got some quick and solid responses to some questions about the capabilities of the card.

I heard rumors that the PNY GeForce FX 5200 PCI card worked in a D/Dock, and I actualy had one recently but never found the time to try it in my D/Dock because I'm already doing dual external monitors without the extra PCI video card in the docking station. I sold the card to a friend of mine for him to use in a server. The Dell PowerEdge 600SC servers have 64bit PCI slots and they are notched different then your standard 32bit slots and the PNY card I bought for it was one of the few I could find that was notched in a fashion that would fit the slot, so it makes me wonder if its a little more versitile of a card. I might be able to borrow the card back and try it in my docking station, but I know he's been pretty busy lately.

When I bought a Dell PowerEdge 400SC it came with a PCI version of the ATI Rage XL card, and I've thought about trying that also but haven't taken the time because what I currently use works.

xenonhs,
When you say "ANY wide format resolutions" what exactly do you mean?
Can you be more specific?
Do you have a D/Dock now, or are you looking at buying one?

Message Edited by M J on 02-05-2004 12:57 AM

I know the video card will detect what monitor is plugged into it and give you only options that the display is capable of, but if your display is capable and its not giving you those options it sounds like a limitation of the Intel 855 graphics chip. I know my nVidia GeForce4 Go is capable of wide screen because my LCD is a wide screen 1280x800, but I have noticed that if I use clone mode with an external monitor such as a projector that doesn't support a wide screen resolution like 1280x800, then I only have the option of choosing 1024x768 even though my laptop LCD is capable, and my graphics chip is capable.

I don't know if the VTBook PC Card is an option for you, but you might want to look into it.

I also asked Village Tronic about the possibilities of the VTBook working with a PCI CardBus card put in a docking station, but they said they never heard of such a strange idea, and that it sounded like it had potential for problems. Being Dell seems to have quite a few issues with all kinds of different PCI cards in the docking stations, I'd probably have to agree with the potential for problems.

MJ,

I am having this same problem with getting a PCI video card to work in my D/DOCK. I have two CRT monitors. Can you tell me what kind of connector I need to get so I can plug one of the CRT monitors into the DVI port on the back of the D/DOCK? Hopefully this would allow me to run dual monitors without needing an extra PCI video card.

Thanks.