Are you nuts?

It seems like just the other day that I added a Dell 2209WA 21.5″ IPS monitor to what was then my work computer, the 24″ white iMac. That machine overheated and died so I had a HackPro built and added a second Dell. This works beautifully with Lightroom 3 and is also invaluable in my day job where I manage money for a living.

At the time I questioned who needs two displays, yet now I find I cannot live without them!

The Dell is 1680 x 1050 pixels, a pixel size which works nicely with my mediocre eyesight, delivering larger fonts than the default in most 24″ monitors which is 1920 x 1200. Sure, the font size can be increased with the latter in the Mac’s System Preferences->Displays panel but then why pay up for the higher pixel density in the first place? Or so I tell myself.

I thought long and hard about migrating to two 27″ widescreen monitors, similar to those used in the current 27″ iMac (though I would use matte screens in preference to the iMac’s ghastly glossy displays) but after several trips to the Apple Store I concluded that the even smaller font sizes on those 2560 x 1440 pixel displays were not what my eyes needed.

Meanwhile, my growing data hunger meant that I was getting frustrated with too much moving about of windows on the two Dells in my day job, so I resolved to add a third display. Mercifully Dell still sells the 2209WA and it’s still around $300, compared with nearly $1,000 for one 27″ Ultrasharp model, but the question remained how best to drive that third monitor from the HackPro. The Hackster runs a superb EVGA Nvidia 9800GTX+ 512mB display card which has two outlets. If you use a Dual-link DVI cable with these (the cable is a single one despite the name) you can power two 30″ monsters or two 27″ ones, for that matter.

So I asked HackPro’s builder to sniff around the Hackintosh chat boards and found there’s not much out there regarding three or more monitor use. It seems that the HackPro could be hacked (!) to accept a second display card as the hardware slot is there on the motherboard, but while the software part was not impossible, I couldn’t afford to lose the use of the HackPro for an extended period of time. Man’s gotta eat …. When I built the HackPro the 24″ iMac was still struggling along so downtime was not an issue. As that dog iMac is now in silicon heaven I no longer have a full sized desktop backup.

So I put the idea of adding a second video card aside and continued to grumble about my lack of screen space.

Then, out of the blue, I came across the Newer Technology USB to DVI/HDMI/VGA adapter, marketed by MacSales for under $70. Less than the price of another display card, in other words. For that sum I thought there was little to lose and just received mine. I decided to try it with one of the Dells to evaluate whether it made sense to buy a third monitor.

The Newer Technology USB to DVI adapter, with VGA and mini-DVI adapters.

Installation requires download of a driver from the DVD which comes with the gadget and a reboot. Thereafter, I simply unplugged one of the Dells from the HackPro’s video card, plugged it into the adapter and the adapter into one of the many free USB sockets on the computer.

No problemo!

The USB connected monitor came to life immediately and after a few minutes spent profiling the setup (the colors were way bluer than with the monitor driven from the computer’s video card, requiring Blue to be reduced from 97 to 85 for a perfect color match across the two monitors) I was up and running.

The most critical test I could think of was to run a movie DVD in the HackPro’s DVD player, stretch the picture across the two adjacent Dells and observe. The USB connected monitor displays the slightest jerkiness compared to smooth scrolling on the other monitor which is connected to the Nvidia 9800GTX+ card. Would you want to watch movies on it all day? No. Is it adequate for my purposes, mostly the display of streaming stock quotes, occasional moving charts, You Tube videos and the like? Yes, more than adequate.

I noted no untoward changes in the operating temperature of any component, using Temperature Monitor as always; the Newer Technology adapter gets noticeably warm but as it resides outside the HackPro box I am not concerned. It is USB powered and there is no external power supply to worry about. The adapter comes with Mini-DVI and VGA adapters if that’s what you use. I simply used direct DVI. Drivers for Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard are included (I use the latter) and the instructions also say that it will work in third world countries where PCs are still in use.

A three screen setup could be of great use to the Lightroom user who frequently finds he has to round trip images through Photoshop, PS being displayed on the third monitor.

Bottom line? I just placed an order for a third Dell 2209WA display and will report back when I have it up and running.

The manufacturers claims that up to four USB powered monitors can be connected to a Mac in this way, one adapter per monitor. Ovbviously, I hope never to have to check this out.

MacSales markets any number of useful Mac add-ons and I have many of their drive enclosures, hard drives, etc. around the home. Check them out – a lot of useful things to be found on their web site.

Anomalies: In addition to the slight jerkiness noted above, I am aware of one other anomaly with regard to the display driven through the USB port using this gadget. Screenshots of that display fail to record, but continue to work fine for the other which is attached to the regular graphics card. So if you take a lot of screen shots, relegate the USB-driven display to more static data where screenshots are not required.

You can read about the final installation here.