Plugable

Features

• Connect 3+ monitors to any brand of laptop or desktop (one adapter required per monitor, up to 6)
• Adds plug and play, extensible USB 2.0 connectivity to any VGA monitor or projector (VGA only; DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort only monitors are not supported)
• DisplayLink DL-165 chip, supports resolutions up to 1920×1080 / 1600×1200
• Supports rotation to portrait mode for full-page editing (requires monitor stand that can rotate)
• Windows 7/Vista/XP drivers installed automatically via Windows Update
• Mac OS X driver available from DisplayLink (OS X 10.7.2 and earlier recommended–10.7.3 not recommended because of a bug with display rotation)
• Linux configuration for advanced users only

Product Description

This adapter allows a standard VGA monitor or projector to be attached via a standard USB 2.0 connection. Up to six adapters supported per Windows PC (4 on Mac). The virtual USB graphics driver extends or mirrors your desktop. Displays are configured using the standard Windows or Mac display control panels.

Package includes a USB 2.0 cable and adapter. No power is needed – power is provided by USB. No fan – solution is very low power and completely silent.

All standard monitor modes up to that maximum resolution can be set by the device.

Multiple Displays

We often hear customers say “After using multiple monitors, I can’t go back!”. If you’re doing information work — looking at one document while editing another, researching, or generally working on several things at once — it’s indispensable.

Simply drag windows back and forth to make use of all the extra Windows desktop space.

Plugable USB graphics adapters fully support rotation — turn one or both screens to show documents in gorgeous full-page layout (with a monitor stand that’s capable of rotation).

A common setup is to create a beautifully symmetric yet flexible 3 display desktop, combining your laptop display with 2 extra monitors on either side with your laptop’s external graphics port + one Plugable adapter, or with two Plugable adapters to allow easy USB dock/undock.

Hardware Requirements and Recommendations

• CPU: Dual-core or 2GHz processor or better recommended on Windows Vista, Win7, and Mac (Single core ULV or Intel Atom class processors or better are recommended for Windows XP and Linux)
• GPU: Used for 2D/3D rendering on Windows Vista and Win7, requiring a single Intel, nVidia, or ATI primary WDDM driver.

Driver and OS Version details

WINDOWS VERSION COMPATIBILITY:
Drivers are provided automatically via Microsoft’s Windows Update mechanism with approved drivers across all of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. 64-bit and full Aero support on Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP 64-bit not supported. Note that Microsoft limits multiple display support in Windows 7 “Starter” Edition and Windows Vista “Home Basic” Edition to mirroring screens.

For Windows Server 2003 (32-bit), Server 2008 (32 and 64-bit) and Server 2008 R2 (64-bit) you will need to download the drivers from the DisplayLink website.

MAC VERSION COMPATIBILITY:
Up to 4 DisplayLink devices can be used with a Mac.

DisplayLink’s Mac driver v. 1.7 for OS X Lion 10.7, Snow Leopard 10.6, Leopard 10.5, and Tiger 10.4 is available at http://displaylink.com/support/mac_downloads.php. DisplayLink notes the following limitation: “This driver does not support 3D acceleration. Some features of Mac OS X-based applications that require hardware OpenGL acceleration, such as Keynote presentations and iPhoto slideshows, will not function properly.”

The latest recommended version of Mac OS X is 10.7.2. Although 10.7.3 was released in February 2012, there is a bug with display rotation that affects third-party drivers. We do not recommend using 10.7.3 until DisplayLink is certain that display-management issues in this OS X release have been fixed.

See http://displaylink.com/mac for more info

LINUX COMPATIBILITY:
As of Linux kernel 2.6.31, this adapter has open source drivers in the kernel staging tree. As of 2.6.38, the driver was promoted to the main kernel tree. Configuration of X Windows for USB displays is still distribution and scenario dependent, however, and only for very adventurous users. Plugable is involved with Linux development work, see http://plugable.com/category/platform/linux/ for details.

Resolutions Supported

The hardware is capable of supporting nearly arbitrary resolutions, up to its limit of 1920×1080 (widescreen) and 1600×1200 (standard). Additional VESA standard and widescreen resolutions are supported by most software, including:

1920×1080, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1400×1050, 1280×1024, 1280×768, 1152×864, 1024×768, 800×600, 640×480

With 16 and 32bpp color depths. Some operating systems require specific depths, like 32bpp for Windows Aero support.

Performance Tuning

A USB graphics adapter is a “virtual” device that uses your machine’s CPU and memory to render graphics. It then transfers just the pixels that change over the USB 2.0 cable to the device. The screen itself is refreshed continually (60 times a second) by hardware over the monitor’s own cable, from memory on the device.

• When nothing on a USB screen is changing, the PC is doing little or no work and nothing is going over USB. Meanwhile, the screen continues to refresh directly from the device.
• However, when most pixels on the screen is changing, your CPU is doing the heavy lifting, and also the (480Mbs) USB 2.0 bus can become a bottleneck. You may start to notice lags in mouse or window movements.

If you’re experiencing slowness or latency on your USB display:

• Reduce your screen resolution with the operating system display control panel.
• Play 3D games and videos on your primary (non-USB) screen.

By reducing the amount of data that needs to be compressed and sent over USB, you’ll increase responsiveness.

Where to Buy

Plugable USB-VGA-165 USB to VGA Adapter for Multiple Displays up to 1920×1080 / 1600×1200 Each (DisplayLink DL-165 Chip)

Product Details

$44.95