Accessory monitor

Before I had achieved a great achievement of getting nvidia surround for a truely immersive experience. And it works great, but I found myself wanting the ability to throw up a tv show or somehting if I was doing something less exciting like fishing. So I would disable nvidia surround and play in single screen, but switching is problematic. Sometimes turning off surround would cause it to crash, or no display and have to restart. It was a pain.

So I got into looking at perhaps an accessory monitor. As it turns out other people have done it, it's not unheard of. Unfortunately, adding a 4th monitor means a new video card since I have GTX580's in SLI, even though I have one unused monitor port. Had I had 6xx series cards or above, I'd be able to use that 4th port for a 4th accessory monitor.

Unfortunately hte inside of my computer looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/5tPievN.jpg


Quite cramped, a new video card would mean a new motherboard and a new case.

Then I remembered hearing about a USB video card. Skeptical about it's performance I started doing some research. Reviews are entirely hit and miss, nearly 50/50 in the for/against aspect. I went through all the brands and decided on the HIS Multi-view II.

Next thing I needed was a way to put one monitor on top of my main surround monitor. That meant I needed to build a stand, and it had to be small, thin, sturdy, and light weight.

I decided to use aluminum from Home Depot, angle pieces for the vertical and horizontal runs and flat pieces supporting side to side. It worked out really well, and only cost about $40 in parts, including about 40 stainless nuts, bolts, and lock washers.

Looking back, I could have probably saved a vew bucks and made it smaller, I over-estimated on the size. It came out looking like this:
http://i.imgur.com/JXAuNBl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/o4uswwn.jpg

Then there was configuring the video cards with the 4th monitor. Turns out you have to have the accessory monitor disconnected before you can enable nvidia surround, then reconnect it. After some headaches figuring out how to get it set up, I got it figured out.

In the end, I was left with this.

http://i.imgur.com/I8b1FYZ.jpg