I have an older Dell 2018 inspiron with a 17" screen and currently running 2 external monitors through D1000 dock. however I want to run 4 external monitors in addition to the laptop screen. Dell has a D3000 dicking station that is advertised as supporting 3 monitor, but I want 4. when I google the capabilities of the R7 M445 video card is says it can support 4 monitors - 2 as daisy chained. Dell has a D3000 USB Dock that's listed as WD19DC Thunderbolt but I don't know if that's compatible with my laptop I'm not sure what to buy - an HDMI splliter? what do I need to be able to run 4 external monitors thank you in advance for your help )
Dell D1000, D3000 and WD series docks are all use a tech called "DisplayLink". Any display connected to these does not use your laptops GPU. They use DisplayLink which is software accelerated by your CPU. The only displays powered by your laptops GPU are the laptops and the HDMi output. The easiest two easiest way for you to extend out to 2 more external displays are the following.... 1) Use the laptops HDMi output for 1 monitor and buy an affordable single HDMi DisplayLink adapter for the other. 2) Buy an affordable DisplayLink USB 3.0 to 2x HDMi adapter. I wouldn't bother with a newer more expensive dock to replace your D1000.
thank you so much - this is great info. The D1000 will only drive 2 monitors so that's out. I like your idea or perhaps get a D3100 that will drive 2 hdmi monitors, 1 DP monitor and I hook up an HDMI monitor to my laptop
You can have multiple DisplayLink adapters connected at once. So you can use your current D1000 and add more Displaylink adapters to get more outputs So for example, you could use your D1000 to power two external monitors AND use the laptops HDMi out to get a 3rd display going. So at that point you only need 1 more Displaylink adapter to get the 4th display.