Use a Laptop as a Monitor - How to Use Your Laptop as a Second Monitor

in this video I'm going to show you how to use a spare laptop as a second monitor for your main computer whether your main computer is a laptop or a desktop hi I'm Fred Kelly you're a nerd sidekick this may sound impossible but with a little video voodoo you can turn a spare laptop into a second monitor and once you know how to do it it only takes a few seconds to set up well let's get to the details this is specifically for windows computers and you'll need to be running Windows 8 or above I will be demonstrating this in Windows 10 so the windows 8 finner interface may look different I'd recommend upgrading to Windows 10 if you haven't already as of April 2020 when I'm filming this the upgrade is still free watch this video to get the upgrade to Windows 10 the conventional way to connect one or more monitors to a computer is obviously with a cable desktop computers have one or more video ports that let you let you connect a standalone monitor like this one or monitors to that computer in a previous video I showed how to add a second monitor to your computer using cables you can see that video by clicking the link up here and most laptops have one or more video ports as well allowing you to add a second monitor to a laptop but if you tried to connect this computer to this laptop with a cable and use this laptop as a second monitor for this desktop computer it just won't work the reason is that standard video ports on a computer only send video out yes there are some computers that have special hardware that allow video to come into a computer but those are definitely not standard and unless you are a video maker you probably will not have that kind of hardware so for example you can't take this HDMI cable it's coming out of my desktop computer and plug it into this laptop and see output output from this desktop on this laptop the video ports just aren't designed to work that way again the video ports only send video out not in so if this laptop only sends video out how do you use it as a second monitor the answer is that we don't use cables at all some hardware typically older hardware won't work when you try what I'm about to show you but recent computers will allow you to do this this process depends on both computers being connected to the same network and the target device in this case my laptop must be connected to the network via Wi-Fi this won't work if the target device is connected with an Ethernet cable like this one which is the type of cable that is used to normally connect a computer to a network the first thing to check is that the target device again that's my laptop is logged in to the Wi-Fi if you put on my glasses if you look down here on the taskbar you will see an icon that looks like this if you are connected to Wi-Fi and if you are connected with a network cable it looks like this again you must be connected via Wi-Fi on the target computer for this to work the computer that is outputting the video in my case this desktop computer can be connected with either Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable the process of getting connected via Wi-Fi is beyond the scope of this video but there are tons of resources available online so you should be able to get this done with a little digging or some help from a kid down the street once you have both computers connected to your network it's time to add the laptop as a second monitor to this desktop computer built into Windows is the capability to connect a wireless display a wireless display maybe a standalone TV as many newer TVs have this capability built in but the great thing is that your laptop and most modern pcs including desktops can also function as a wireless display to start this process first go to the laptop you wish to use as a second monitor we only have to do this process once assume you are satisfied with the settings in the future you will start this process from the other computer you'll see that step in a couple of minutes so on the laptop hold down the window key that's the one that looks like the windows logo hold it down and simultaneously press the P key over here on the right you'll see a grey area that pops out click the link that says connect to a wireless display near the bottom it will say projecting to this PC click the link and you will see a page with settings you can adjust for how your laptop will behave when another computer connects to it as a wireless display the first drop-down lets you control whether or not this computer is available as a wireless display and when it is available you probably want this set to available everywhere on secure networks or it can also set it to be available everywhere which would include when you are logged into a non-secure network and finally you can set it to always off if you don't want this device to be used as a wireless display next you can specify what happens when a computer wants to connect to or project to this PC if you set this to every time a connection is requested you will have to approve the use of this PC as a wireless display each time you or someone requests it if you set this to first time only you only have to give permission to the other PC once and from then on the wireless connection will not require approval from this PC if you're working in a private or safe location you probably want to set this to first time only so the connection is automatic each time thereafter and for added protection you can require a pin for pairing either never first time or always and finally if you are concerned about battery life on your laptop you can set this last setting so that your PC can only be discovered for projection when it's plugged into a power source at the bottom the name of your PC is displayed make a note of this name since you will be connecting to this specific PC in a few moments if you happen to have more than one wireless display connected to your network you want to make sure you connect to the right one now go to the main computer you actually intend to work from in my case here the desktop computer press and hold the window key while simultaneously pressing P then release both keys the gray bar pops out from the right of the screen and you can just click on connect to a wireless display you'll see connect here at the top and the gray bar will be populated with any available wireless displays it may take a few seconds for your wireless display to appear if you don't see your display you can click the search button here and type in the name of the PC that we looked at in a previous step click on the display you wish to connect to at the top of the screen you'll see a small bar that says connecting to your device on the other computer the one you are attempting to connect to the laptop in my case a small notification will pop up in the lower right of your screen in the drop down here you have several options for what you want to happen assuming you wish to allow the connection click always allow then click OK if you do not wish to connect just click and dismiss once the wireless connection is made your laptop will now be displaying video output from your other computer again my desktop is now displaying on my laptop and this monitor you can now use the laptop to duplicate the display or extend the display I'll explain the difference if you duplicate the display what you see on the main computers display and on the laptop will be the same the more likely scenario is that you will want to extend your display that will give you more room to view your programs and various windows because your workspace is now the size of two monitors not one to switch between duplicate or extend press the window key and P to open the project settings notice that I'm saying project not project because we are projecting our computer to a wireless display yes English can be confusing and difficult click on the setting you wish to use for example I will change mine from extend to duplicate you can see that the exact same thing is displayed now on both displays if I bring up a web browser and move that around you can see it is the exact same thing on those both displays I'll switch back to extents of the two monitors display different things if I open any program like this web browser I can drag it from one window to another I can open a second program like the calculator and this other display here and view different things on each display you may need to fine-tune the way the two displays are positioned in relation to one another to make this changes you'll need to go to your display settings you can do that by right clicking on the desktop so I'm right clicking and click display settings or down here in the search box you can just start typing display once you type a few letters you will see display settings here and just click on that you'll be taken to the display settings page and at the top you will see an area that says rearrange your displays inside the gray area you will see two or more rectangles that represent the monitors connected to the main computer click on the identify button to see which rectangle represents each monitor so again if I click that you can see one is this monitor the way it's positioned here if I click it again 2 is represented by our laptop you may find that the physical arrangement of your monitors doesn't match where the computer thinks they are located to change this just click and drag the rectangles so they match the way your monitors are positioned and actually sit next to each other on your desk you can even position them higher or lower than the other depending on how they sit next to each other once you have them positioned how you like them click the apply button so I'll click apply here and because my laptop sits lower than my desktop monitor I want to have these set that way so that the the second monitor the laptop sits down lower by adjusting the vertical positioning you will control where your mouse and other programs pass from one monitor to the next so if I try to move the mouse here if I cannot move my mouse beyond the border of the monitor I have to come down here somewhere close to the other monitor and you can see the the mouse passes over to the left onto the laptop monitor again that mimics the way I have arranged these here once you have the monitors arranged the way you want them you can close the display settings window you can use your keyboard and mouse from either computer if you adjust a setting to allow this from the main computer press the window key + P to bring up the projection settings again click on connect to a wireless display to show details about the connection you already have running check the box where it says allow a mouse keyboard touch and pen input from this device once you check that you can control the computer with the mouse from your main computer and your laptop so I can move on they lapped the mouse from my laptop now and now I'm moving the mouse with my desktop computer I can also type on either keyboard and I can even hear audio if I play audio from my desktop computer I can hear it on my laptop if you uncheck this box which is the default setting when you first connect a wireless display you will not be able to tag from your laptop you will be able to move your laptop's mouse pointer around but it won't be able to control your main computer this can give you some fun interesting and confusing results since you will have to Mouse pointers on the laptop screen at the same time your laptop's Mouse is essentially powerless in this mode since it can't click anything once you allow the mouse and keyboard to work from your laptop you will only see a single mouse pointer no matter which Mouse you use the setting you choose is saved from one session to the next so you don't have to specify this each time you connect the wireless display in my testing the speed of the second monitor was a bit slower than what you get from a monitor connected with a cable and the display would occasionally glitch also I found that if I didn't accept the wireless connection on the laptop once the connection timed out I was all it not always able to reconnect the wireless display without rebooting one or the other public computers you can choose three different modes for the wireless display you do that up here on the main computer where the little bar is here and if you click on the gears you will see gaming working or watching videos I was not able to detect any difference between these three modes and my testing but both computers I was testing were fairly high in PC so these se settings may be more helpful on computers with less horsepower when you're ready to disconnect your wireless display from the main computer just click the disconnect button up here on this toolbar or press the window key P and finally click disconnect in my case I was able to use either my desktop computer or my laptop computer as the wireless display in other words the connection worked both ways although using a laptop as a wireless display was the goal of this video using a desktop computer probably doesn't make much sense if you have a separate monitor like this one since you could just plug that into the laptop directly if you have an all-in-one computer that has the computer and monitor built into a single unit the technique discussed here would make more sense you may find some hardware has more trouble than others connecting an older laptop I have was simply not compatible to work as a wireless display you may see a message like this on your computer when you are trying to configure it to be a wireless display hey be sure to like this video if it helped you that helps other people find it so they too can use their laptop as a second monitor and subscribe and click the bell to get notified when I release future videos I'd love to hear how this works for you in the comments below I'm Fred Kelly your nerd sidekick thanks for watching

Channel: Nerd Sidekick

Views: 1,734,571

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Id: JNG1sCRiwyk

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020