Do I need an onbard GPU to use Display Link?

[danny]

I have a laptop with nVidia 8600M GS graphics card. However, the graphics card got fried and is no longer functional. I was hoping to use Display Link USB adapter to get my laptop output its display to an external monitor so that I can use the laptop. It is not clear to me if it is necessary to have a working GPU in order to use Display Link. Will Display Link work with a non-functional GPU in the computer? Any clarification is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Danny

[danny]

I am sure DisplayLink support staff knows answer to this. Can anybody on the staff let me know so that I can make a decision whether to buy DisplayLink device or not?

Thanks.
Danny

[Wim]

DisplayLink does need a working GPU, as we use it to do the 3D acceleration effects in Windows Vista and 7. It depends how "fried" your graphics card is. If the driver is still there, and its just a corrupted screen (ie just the video output is screwy), it may still work, and we can use it, but I couldn't guarantee it.

So we do need a GPU and this one may work enough. The only thing to do would be to try it... might be cheaper than a new computer!

Wim

[mick]

Danny - did you end up trying this with your fried GPU?

Wim - would the same apply to a Mac?

I have a MacBook Pro (early 2008 model running OS X 10.7.4) that just lost its internal graphics card (green static lines on display while booting, display freezing just before the log-on screen). It is otherwise still fully functional via remote desktop VNC.

It would be great if I could use a DL-195 adapter with external monitor to get some more use out of this laptop.

Cheers,

Mick

[Wim]

This might be OK on the Mac, as we don't use the GPU in our driver today, but I cannot guarantee this will be the case in the future.

You can try it at your own risk... :-)

Wim

[mick]

Thanks Wim. It's definitely worth a try and I'll post an update hopefully with good results later this week.

Cheers,

Mick

[mick]

After more than a week my new Kensington Universal Multi-Display Adapter (with DL-195) finally arrived in the mail from a supposedly Aussie online retailer.

After testing it for few days, I'm happy to report that it works great! Following is a short review...

The OS X driver on the supplied CD was quite outdated and could not be installed (incorrectly detecting the MacBook Pro as a non intel Mac). Downloading and installing the current version 1.8 driver from the DisplayLink website did the trick.

After rebooting and connecting the Kensington adapter to a Samsung 24" display, OS X seemed to automatically configure the new Kensington display as the primary display (probably since the internal display is broken) with full 1920 x 1080 resolution. Obviously the boot-up is not visible on the Kensington display (since the USB driver needs to be loaded first), but it switches on at the log-on screen.

Colour and image quality are excellent, dragging windows shows a tiny fraction of lag, while watching movies (YouTube or TV through an elegato eyeTV) at full resolution is not enjoyable. Still, the product can't be faulted for running office apps, browsing the web, checking email, and even using Photoshop, and thus extending the life of a four year old MacBook Pro that would otherwise have joined the scrap heap.

Note to other MacBook Pro users: the only way I could install the DisplayLink driver was through a remote desktop connection (because the internal graphics card is broken), which assumed "Screen Sharing" (with VNC in this case) was previously enabled. It might be possible to install (or at least setup Screen Sharing) through a "Remote Login" (ssh) session, but I can't confirm this.

Note to DisplayLink team: thanks for a great product! Even if in the future you upgrade the OS X driver to also use the internal GPU, make sure to keep a version without this feature to cater for users with broken laptop GPU's.

Cheers,

Mick