Would like a single monitor, to behave like dual monitors using a HP 5800 Desktop

[fivelitregirl]

Hello,

I have a teacher that would like to show a video, and work on grades at the same time using a single monitor. I thought I could just go in, and extend the screen, and all would be good. I don't see an option for extending the screen. The machine we are using is an HP5800 desktop, running Windows 7, and I have an Nvidia 8 bit add on graphics card. I tried to plug the monitor into the add on video card, and plug the projector into the onboard video card, however that didn't work. So I took the graphics card back out, and plugged the monitor in with a splitter, and then hooked the projector up. That didn't work out either. Any suggestions to make this work would be awesome!! The machine is only a 1gb ram, and 40gb hard drive. I think we are asking it to do the impossible!!
Thank you in advance.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

fivelitregirl

Sorry, but you misunderstand how the video in your PC is designed to work.

Your PC has something known as Switchable Graphics, and that requires two video chipsets.

When doing routine desktop stuff, the PC uses one of the graphics chips, but when more demanding work is done, like watching videos or playing video-intensive games, the PC automatically switches over to the other video chip.

So, it only uses ONE video chip at a time, and switches between them.

So basically, there is no way to utilize both video chips at the same time.