Why two HDMI ports on Aliware PC

[Jer_1974]

My son has an Alienware PC and it has two HDMI ports. Why? Is it so you can have two screens? I'm setting up his Xbox and PC in his bedroom but his screen only has one HDMI port. I was going to buy a splitter but can I plug the Xbox into the PC and display the xbox through the PC?

[untakenname]

Some nvidia maxwell based cards have two hdmi outputs that when combined make one single 4K output.

[jacobpalmer05]

Its quite likely that there is one HDMI on the motherboard and another on the graphics card, ensure you use the one on the graphics card. I would be very surprised if you could run the Xbox through the PC.

[ecsrobin]

It will be for multiple monitors. In work I have numerous computers setup with 5 monitors off one graphics card would be great as a gaming rig.

[Beati Dogu]

One may be configured as an input, which should allow you to plug a games console in and use the screen as a display for it.

The computer would need to be switched on of course, so it makes more sense to just use a HDMI switch.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 7th March 00:46

[davepoth]

I expect the manual says something about it.

[The_Jackal]

Are you sure Beati, or are you just guessing?
I thought an HDMI INPUT was a high end (ie workstation) card feature, not a gaming pc card.
If the OP told us the name of the card we could google it for him and tell him for sure.
But as it stands, odds are it can't take an hdmi input.

[Jer_1974]

Looks like its one on the motherboard and one on the card. The one on the card only runs once Windows is loaded up and all the drivers have loaded.

[The_Jackal]

There you go.
Bottom line is then, that you can't feed in his xbox.

[mph1977]

depends on the card and how it;s all set up - but i'd suspect it;s to allow a dual screen set up - which is increasingly not the niche thing it was in the past

the computer i'm writing this on at the moment began life as a 'workstation' and has a Nvidia quadro graphics card with dvi and displayport - at present there;s one monitor via DVI and one via displayport , although it is apprently possible to have several displayport monitors connected via spliters or daisychaining

[jacobpalmer05]

Jer_1974 said:

Looks like its one on the motherboard and one on the card. The one on the card only runs once Windows is loaded up and all the drivers have loaded.

I believe that is normal for newer cards as my neighbours does that too. Don't be fooled into using the one on the motherboard as this uses onboard graphics and your graphics card will be going to waste.