Inspiron 8200 gf4 440 32M has a dual display problem

[rl2008]

I wonder if someone could help me get this straight. I'm trying to hook up a CRT as a second screen on Inspiron 8200 (1.8G, 1.5GB, GF4 440 Go 32MB running XPProSP2 with Dell's current driver, video BIOS updated to tle latest version available on Dell site).

I can get it to clone, but there seems to be no way to set an extended desktop, which is what I really want. I want to make more room on the desktop to make video editing more bearable, this LCD is a great UXGA, but it is only a 15" panel, and all this squinting gives me headache. I would like to extend desktop to 3200x1200 to put video windows on the CRT. Dual Screen could also work, I think, but having just a bigger version of the single pane is not worth keeping the CRT on the desk.

NV panels do show two monitors, but I can not get the identify to show for monitor 2, all I get is a clone of monitor 1. I don't have nView showing up anywhere on the panel. Looks to me like something is not enabled properly or perhaps the CRT is mis-identified in such way that it is deemed incompatible.

At this point I would prefer not to reload th edriver (maybe not really broken, do not fix), but I would like to hear from someone who has solved this issue. If someone has a great experience loading a specific driver on this machine and can recommend it I would like to hear that, I'm not exactly arfaid of reloading the driver but if there is no good reason, I would rather not mess with it.

thanks

Edited February 27, 2008 by rl2008