Laptop advice needed

[dBel84]

I am so out of touch with technology that it is a little disappointing, I need a little help from you tech savvy folk.

I need to set up a workstation to view DICOM images from a database and would like a laptop to drive this thing.

I have a pair of EIZO monitors which use a DVI input, I have a decent size storage bay ( up to 9TB ) which negates the need for a large drive but I would prefer 7500rpm +- 200GB onboard. It seems to make sense to go with a quadcore processor and I need to keep the budget at $2500

I have found a few laptops which meet most of the requirements but none of the graphics cards seem to support DVI. Is this technology being phased out ? I know I can find a VGA to DVI converter for little money but will this still allow for the high contrast ratio that the monochrome monitor is capable of?

Any ideas welcomed, including where to find the best pizza in Chicago.

..dB

[dBel84]

Thanks, I have seen the display port on a few of the machines I was looking at. I guess if I adapt from one of these outputs to DVI it will retain the resolution.

[n_maher]

Is weight a big consideration?

[dBel84]

no , it will mostly be stationary.

The group I work for has a contract with Dell , so I was looking at their mobile workstations.

I also found this adapter at Dell , USB to DVI

[n_maher]

Have a look at alienware, if you can get past some of the bling they are well built IME.

[Dusty Chalk]

I have a pair of EIZO monitors which use a DVI input...I have found a few laptops which meet most of the requirements but none of the graphics cards seem to support DVI. Is this technology being phased out ?

There just isn't the room to put a full DVI connector on a laptop. Think of DVI as the larger USB connectors, and HDMI as the smaller USB connectors -- it really is just a matter of a cable. So once you put HDMI back into the picture, that opens up your choices enormously, dunnit?

[dBel84]

LOL at alienware - I looked at them and went WTF! , my first exposure to the bling .

I have realised that looking for a DVI out is not good - I found a few discontinued laptops with them but where is the point in that, so an adapter will work just perfectly.

[n_maher]

It also may be true that in order to get a laptop to do dual monitor support it has to be used with a dock. My M17 has several output options but I don't know if they can be used simultaneously despite having two video cards.

[dBel84]

I had not considered this. Will investigate further ..dB

[episiarch]

I had had the impression that dual-link DVI just gave a faster data rate for higher resolution displays, but not dual-display capability. Can you actually split a dual-link DVI to drive two different displays? If so, well, Apple offers a mini-DisplayPort to dual-link DVI adaptor, so conceivably even a modern MacBook could work.

Otherwise, there are external DVI ports that run off a USB port. I haven't experimented with them myself, but they're out there. You wouldn't want to use that for motion video, but for still images it should be all right. Any laptop with two of those, or one of those plus a laptop that could drive DVI, and you'd be in business*.

*OS / driver support could be an issue, so it'd be worth carefully checking the specs and reviews before buying.

[Dusty Chalk]

Where did the requirement to run two monitors come from? The earliest post I can find mentioning it is Nate's.

[episiarch]

I took it from first post, a pair of monitors.

[Dusty Chalk]

Ah, missed that. Still, it's kind of vague, I probably subconsciously read it as "...I could use either one..."...everyone else is assuming it is a requirement, so I'll assume it is, too.

I THINK that it depends on the driver that was written for the card. I see that splitters exist, but it still means that the driver needs to be written such that the correct information is fed to the port for both monitors separately. Still, it'd probably be easiest just to make sure it has two ports, every single computer that I've ever used that had ports could control them separately, be they on the same card or not (or as is standard around my office, has a proprietary port and a breakout cable).

[dBel84]

I found out yesterday that the monitors are coming with a video card. After much reconsideration, I figured it best to drop the laptop idea and stick with a desktop . At Nate's suggestion asked for a quote on the mini Alienware unit..dB

It will be driving 2 monitors .

[Nebby]

Ah, missed that. Still, it's kind of vague, I probably subconsciously read it as "...I could use either one..."...everyone else is assuming it is a requirement, so I'll assume it is, too.

I THINK that it depends on the driver that was written for the card. I see that splitters exist, but it still means that the driver needs to be written such that the correct information is fed to the port for both monitors separately. Still, it'd probably be easiest just to make sure it has two ports, every single computer that I've ever used that had ports could control them separately, be they on the same card or not (or as is standard around my office, has a proprietary port and a breakout cable).

I'm a bit late to this party, but here's some info.

A dual-link DVI connector is not designed for driving dual monitors; it is designed to supply the extra bandwidth and signaling required for high resolution. DVI splitters work by literally splitting the signal and routing the signals so that one monitor actually communicates with the video card while the other monitor simply receives the signal from the video card. One thing to keep in mind is that there is not standard specification for a DVI splitter, so whether or not your video card will work with a splitter is rather variable....it's mostly luck of the draw.

To muddy the waters even more, there's a port that does support dual monitor output in a single connector. It actually looks very similar to a DVI port, except it's missing the "blade" at one end of the connector. It's called the DMS-59 connector and electrically it contains two single-link DVI connections along with two VGA connections. Computers/video cards that have this port generally come with adapters that split out to two connectors.

Picture for reference:

DMS-59

Dual-link DVI

I have heard that splitters don't work as well with single link DVI ports, I would assume that's because of the reduced signaling.

[Dusty Chalk]

That DMS-59 connector must be what we have around the office.

[dBel84]

It looks like I should be good - the video card has 2 DVI outputs. Should I be surprised that our IT group will not support alienware? No bling for me then - as long as it does what I want it to do, I will be more than happy.

..dB

[n_maher]

I wonder why they won't support it, as far as I know you can reformat them and leave off 99% of the alienware software (to control the lights and junk) and it'll run like any other laptop. Actually, it'll run quite a bit better since it has real hardware under the hood and not just a bunch of chips soldered to a motherboard all sharing RAM.

[dBel84]

It has to do with how long Dell will support the individual parts. Unfortunately I cannot get it regardless of support or else I will not be allowed to plug it into the network and .... well you get the idea. It has taken me the better part of 6 months to get the project this far so I am just rolling with whatever it takes to make it work at this point..dB

[manaox2]

I have never bought Dell, they make decent PCs and look fair, but not a big fan of trying to get them to help with anything. A friend of mine had their laptop bios password set on accident. This is like the computer equivalent of locking your keys in the car.

Dell support wanted $59 to give a master password to unlock it. Seeing as how its stored in the eeprom and not the CMOS on many laptops, this was not an easy, remove the battery, set a jumper, or short the pins trick. Not much a tech support guy could do with this certain model. Noting how old the laptop was and run down and prices of eeprom chip readers aren't so cheap, it was cheaper in the end to buy a new used laptop and stick the old hardware in as upgrades.