Dual monitors issue on Dell E5470

That is the disadvantage of using vga. It is old tech and cannot be fixed. It is only there for backwards compatibility for old monitors. Most new laptops do not have even have vga.

@Mary G , VGA is old technology, but that doesn't explain why this system can't send 1080p over VGA.  I remember doing on Latitude D600 laptops from 2003 when the Dell 2405FPW 24" 1920x1200 display hit the market for $1200.  And if a Latitude D600 from 2003 can handle that, then it's not unreasonable to expect that an E5470 that's only a few years old should be able to as well.  And there are plenty of 1080p displays on the market that can receive that resolution over VGA.  Your reply contains nothing helpful to the OP.

@AT_D  active adapters such as VGA to HDMI (and HDMI to VGA that are designed to go in the opposite direction) can be a bit finicky and can behave differently on different systems, but it's definitely strange that you can't get FHD on an FHD display that actually has a VGA input.  Are your Intel Graphics drivers up to date?  And just as a test, can you get FHD if you either disable the built-in display (assuming you're trying to use it alongside these 2 external displays) and/or if you disconnect the HDMI display?  If that doesn't change anything, you can try going into Intel HD Graphics Control Panel (or Command Center, depending on driver version) and creating a custom resolution to force FHD to that display to see if that makes a difference, even though that shouldn't be necessary.

Hi @jphughan,

"Are your Intel Graphics drivers up to date?" - Yes, I've tried to update my VGA driver up to ver 27.20 but it got a bit weird that when I view properties of 2nd monitor, seems like it doesn't upgrade the driver to 27.20 same as what built-in display and 1st monitor does, am i missing something?

"Can you get FHD if you either disable the built-in display (assuming you're trying to use it alongside these 2 external displays) and/or if you disconnect the HDMI display" - Yes, I also tried all these things but got no luck. 

About the custom resolution, I also tried to add 1080p but when I switch the resolution then the screen display an error message that 1080p, 60hz is not supported (maybe I'm miss somethings). Since now I'm using driver ver 27.20 and have been noticed that custom resolution was removed out from Intel Graphics Command Center so Ii can't add custom resolution anymore. 

@AT_D  An Intel Graphics driver update would apply to the actual GPU and would not be a per-display update.  So I'm not sure what you're looking at that's leading you to believe that the driver update is only applying to the built-in display and not the external display.

But if you can't get 1080p to work even when creating a custom resolution and even when using a regular VGA connection instead of using an adapter and even when no other external display is connected, I'm really not sure what to suggest at this point.  I suppose it's possible there's some strange limitation on that system model's VGA output, but that would be surprising given that VGA supported 1920x1200 more than 15 years ago.  If you happen to have another VGA cable lying around, maybe try that just because it would be a simple test, but other than that the only other possibility I can think of right now would be some sort of hardware issue with your specific system.  I'll post back if I think of anything else, but that's all I've got at the moment.  Sorry!

Hi @jphughan ,

It's okay, let me try again what you have proposed one more time. I believe that maybe I've done some wrong configurations somewhere.

Btw, thanks for your support 

Hi @jphughan,

I've just identified that maybe there is something wrong with my VGA port. When I try to disconnect all display (included built-in display as well), connected to only 2nd monitor with VGA port and re-install Dell Monitor Manager, it cannot recognize my VGA port as the display input (supposed it should be).

Anyway, it still able to display through VGA port with the highest solution is 1680x1050. Do you have any idea on this?

@AT_D  I've never bothered with Dell Display Manager, so I'm not sure what's going on there.  But I seriously doubt that its presence or absence would affect the maximum resolution achievable from your system's VGA output.