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March 7th, 2020 13:00
Running Dual Monitors on Inspiron 5570
I am attempting to connect a 2nd monitor to my Inspiron 5570 laptop, but the laptop only has 1 HDMI port to use.
I have an older USB-C adapter that I thought I could use, but the laptop does not have a USB-C port on it (sad face). I bought a male-to-male USB-A to USB-A cable to go from the laptop to the adapter and then plugged the HDMI cable from the 2nd monitor to the adapter but that's not working either.
I'm no tech genius so either I'm doing something incredibly wrong, don't have the correct equipment or am fighting an unwinnable fight and cannot do it. Can anyone assist me in getting this connected?
jphughan
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March 8th, 2020 08:00
@DJ238769 happy to help. Fyi when talking about adapters, it's helpful if you can identify the specific make and model of the adapter to eliminate some confusion, or post a picture of it if you can't find any markings on it, but based on that follow-up description, if your adapter has an HDMI output and a female USB-A port, then the adapter would be meant to connect to the USB-C port of a host system and allow you to connect a display and/or a USB-A peripheral that would both be able to run through that USB-C connection. This is particularly useful for people who might have laptops that ONLY have USB-C ports but still need to connect USB-A peripherals (or for people who just needed one more USB-A port). So the adapter's USB-A port is intended to allow an external USB-A device to connect to your USB-C PC, not be used as an alternative way to connect the adapter to the host system.
And just as fun fact, fyi male USB-A to male USB-A cables are pretty hard to find because they shouldn't even exist, and the only reason they DO exist to some extent is that some badly behaved manufacturers of often low quality products implemented female USB-A ports on their peripherals, even though the USB spec indicates that only host devices like PCs are supposed to have female USB-A ports, whereas peripheral devices are supposed to have female USB-B ports (the more square-shaped connector type you'd find on printers and such). That's why the vast majority of USB cables you find have a male USB-A connector on one end and a male USB-B connector on the other. There are some data transfer cables that have USB-A ports on both ends because they're meant to directly connect two PCs, but that's because they have an actual controller device within the cable itself, so in that case each PC is technically connecting to the in-line controller, not directly to the other PC. But outside of that, if you ever see two female USB-A ports, the overwhelming likelihood is that they are not meant to be directly connected to each other and will not work as expected even if you find a cable that would achieve that.
DJ238769
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March 7th, 2020 13:00
Thanks for the help, but the issue here is my Inspiron does not support USB-C as there is no port available for it. Not sure why as the laptop is only 18 months old (but I guess in the tech world, that's ancient). I looked into a USB-C female to USB-A male connector but it seems those don't support video output.
nyc10036
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March 7th, 2020 13:00
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Inspiron-5570-and-two-external-monitors/td-p/7194277
nyc10036
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March 7th, 2020 14:00
I am not understanding why others with the same model have the USB-C port and yours don't.
DJ238769
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March 7th, 2020 17:00
I don't know either. I attached a pic of mine and there is a big gap where the USB-C should be according to the manual I found online. Maybe they didn't accommodate on a "cheaper" model and I didn't realize at time of purchase. The laptop was only bought in November 2018 so it's not THAT old.
jphughan
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March 7th, 2020 19:00
@DJ238769 according to the Inspiron 5570 Setup and Specifications document available on support.dell.com (direct link here), the USB-C port on that system is optional. On some Dell systems, the port is only available on configurations that include a discrete GPU. I see that the Inspiron 5570 is available with an AMD Radeon GPU, but that might not be true of all configurations.
Anyhow, in terms of your adapter, I'm not sure how you took a USB-C adapter and connected it to your system using a male to male USB-A to USB-A cable (unless that was supposed to say female USB-C to male USB-A), but in any case the overwhelming majority of USB-C video output dongles rely on the system having a USB-C port that actually has a GPU output wired to it. That is an optional capability of USB-C ports, and even among systems with USB-C ports, not all of them have a GPU output on that port. But USB-A ports have never supported GPU outputs. The only way you'd be able to get video out of a regular USB port is by using an adapter that uses "indirect display" technology such as DisplayLink (not to be confused with DisplayPort). Plugable is a well-known vendor of such products (and other products), and if you go their product page here and select "DisplayLink USB Graphics Adapters"), you'll find some options. If you want HDMI, there's one version that supports up to 2560x1440 displays and another more expensive option that can support up to 4K.
However, be aware that DisplayLink technology can have some significant drawbacks that will be noticeable in certain use cases. I wrote about them in detail in this thread, specifically the post marked as the answer. The question related to gaming through a DisplayLink-based docking station, but my answer applied more broadly than that. If those drawbacks won't apply to you, then you should be fine. And even if they might, you might decide that having a second display even with some potential lower performance is still better than not having one at all, because if all you've got is an HDMI port on that system, then this is the only way to connect an additional external display.
DJ238769
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March 8th, 2020 05:00
Thanks for the help. The adapter I had has a USB-A port on it as well so I had a USB-A Male cable going from the laptop to the adapter hoping that would work but the monitor isn't registering. I'll have to look into one of those docks you provided. Thanks again.