multiple monitors

[Mitranell]

Hi,

I want to use three monitors, one laptop screen and two external screens. I have connected the screens in two ways.

VGA + DisplayPort to HDMI

With this setup, two monitors do work. When I try to add a third monitor (Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display\Screen Resolution) and click OK, Windows gives the following message: "Unable to save display settings".

Wether I enable the laptop screen with an external screen or two external screens does not matter. It just cannot handle three screens. Microsoft says:

"This issue occurs because some laptop graphic adapters only support two displays at one time. When you attempt to configure the display settings to use a third monitor on a laptop that supports only two monitors, Windows 7 and Windows 8 will check the hardware to confirm compatibility, then display the error message."

But the hardware does support three monitors...

VGA + DisplayPort/USB to VGA adapter (to VGA of course)

When i connect the screens like this, alle screens are working. The only problem is that when I set the resolution of the screen attached to the DisplayPort or USB (to VGA adapter) to 1920 x 1080, the screen starts to flicker.

When I put  the resolution to 1600 x 900 the screen works just fine. This is not a big problem, but when you buy a 27 inch Full HD screen you want to use it to it full capibility as you can imagine.

I read something about active DisplayPort, should that do the trick? Do I maybe have to 'trick' Windows so it lets me use all three monitors? Or do I just have to live with this flaw?

Thanks for your help!

HP Elitebook 8540w (no HDMI slot)
ATI FirePro M5800