How to set up two monitors for double the screen real estate

A must for multitaskers.

Even a generous 24-inch monitor can feel cramped when you’ve got multiple windows open on your desktop (and who doesn’t?). It’s much worse if you’re confined to a laptop screen. Fortunately, it’s simple enough to add a second monitor to your PC setup and spread out.

Any modern desktop or laptop PC has the graphics capability to run dual displays. All that’s required is a second monitor. You can get a very nice second screen for around $100, such as HP’S 21.5-inch, 1920x1080 Pavilion IPS monitor for $99 on Amazon ( go.pcworld. com/hppn) or Acer’s 21.5-inch, 1920x1080 G226HQL for $90 on Amazon ( go.pcworld. com/g226). Both feature fairly thin bezels, an important feature if you want to minimize the interruption between your two screens.

Today’s monitors typically come with some combination of VGA, DVI, HDMI, and

Displayport ports. In other words, you’ll have a couple options for how to connect the monitor to your PC. While its common for VGA and DVI