Switching between displays

My wife's laptop has given up the ghost. She used it a lot at her desk in our living room, and I have to replace it. I don't want another laptop, we never took it anywhere anyway.

We've been talking about building an HTPC and now is obviously the time. It will be running on our 42" plasma TV, I've already tried it with the hardware I'll be using and it works great. Problem is, this machine will now need to serve two functions: her PC (web browsing, record-keeping, etc) and the HTPC (DVD playing, streaming video via Netflix, etc.) She does not want to use our TV as her monitor for her use.

What would be best way to set this up so that we can switch the output of the machine between the LCD on her desk and the TV (via HDMI) when we want to use it there? I'm presently planning to use the onboard video, HD4200 with HDMI but that can change if it has to.

Thanks in advance!!

If I am interpreting this correctly (and I may not be) but it sounds like you want some sort of hardware solution, rather then switching between monitors using Windows. If that's the case, you'll need some sort of reverse KVM switch. This would allow you to use the HTPC from a laptop as well as use it from a different keyboard/mouse combo from the TV. Again, I may have completely misinterpreted what you want here :/

How many video outputs does the onboard video have? If it has 2, I would just go the easy route and do it with software, either enabling/disabling the output to the TV when needed, or just being careful to not move stuff onto the TV when it's not turned on. A big problem you'll run into with an HDMI multiplier like Yeticorn linked is that if the resolution of the two displays are not identical, the higher resolution one (presumably the TV) will get forced down to the resolution of the smaller display.

I don't have to have a hardware solution. As you can tell, multiple monitors are new to me. Software would be fine.

To clarify, there will be no laptop involved, just a single desktop PC. All I need to do is to be able to switch output between the LCD on the desk and the TV at will and as easily as possible.

The onboard has three outputs: HDMI, VGA/D-sub and DVI-D. This is the board I'll be using if it matters.

Thanks for the help guys.

I know that in the nvidia control panel, there's an option to switch between displays, or even clone them (same output to both monitors), so I'd imagine that ATI would have something similar.

Ah, ok. I'm guessing that board can probably output on 2 of the 3 outputs at any time, so if that's the case I would just go the route I said before and have them both hooked up all the time.

yea CCC has it so you can duplicate or extend the display between monitors. you could just have it duplicate the displays, and you can set resolution independently, and just use whichever monitor you want at the time :D

Windows even has it built-in as well

Ok, I am going to close this thread with a great big wet :facepalm:.


I can run the output from the computer to both displays all the time. If I want to watch TV I'll just tell the *television* what to dsplay. If I don't want to use the monitor I'll *turn it off*.

Yeah, those gifted classes as a child are really bearing fruit now. Thanks, Mom and Dad.