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8 Posts

5704

February 18th, 2022 18:00

I want to set up 3 monitors including AIO that is running my wife's setup

So I bought from Costco a Dell Inspiron i5400-7910SLV-PUS All-In-One Desktop, i7-1165G7 AIO.

I've finally got my wife onto the idea of multiple monitors and now that she's tasted 2, one the built in AIO and a second, she would love a third monitor.  She never games on this, just email, shopping, YouTube, WhatsApp, and ZOOM.

I just so happened to have 2 Samsung 24" monitors that have HDMI or S-VGA inputs ONLY. So i plugged one HDMI monitor input into the HDMI output on the back of the unit and purchased a USB-C hub that had an HDMI output and usb3 and a couple other things.

The 1 screen plugged into HDMI on the back of AIO, no problem.

I plugged the second into the HDMI output on the USB-C hub and I just get a black screen.

I swapped screens, same thing, I added an extra power input to the USB-C hub in case it needed more power for some reason and same result.

So is there some reason the USB-C output will never send screen output from this unit, or is it just my USBC hub that's the issue?

Or do I need to get a cable that's USB-C - HDMI or USB-C - SVGA so that I have a different type of output to make the 2nd outboard monitor work?

I'm quite disappointed by the lack of outputs on the back of this unit to be honest, 1 USB-C, 1 HDMI output, 1 HDMI input and some USB A.

Because there is only 1 USB-C output I don't want to purchase a cable to plug directly into the computer if possible. The SD card reader on the back of the unit is stupid and my wife can't reach it, which I why I bought the USB-C hub so that she could use that, and I could get the extra HDMI output that I needed.

Any help would truly be appreciated, I've been searching for weeks and can't seem to find the answer to my problem.

10 Elder

45.2K Posts

February 19th, 2022 18:00

@Quozlator Is this an Inspiron 5400 ?

As @nyc10036 mentioned, the USB-C may not support video. Specs for the Inspiron 5400 only say USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Type-C) port. No mention of video support.

Just get a standard USB3>HDMI dongle or USB3>DP dongle depending on what ports your monitor has.

Make sure the dongle supports both your version of Windows and the "recommended" (aka: "native" or "optimal") resolution for the monitor to be connected to the dongle.

4 Operator

5.6K Posts

February 19th, 2022 18:00

Does your AIO's USB-C capable of DisplayPort Alt Mode ?

I can't find your AIO on Costco's website?

1 Rookie

8 Posts

February 20th, 2022 18:00

I'll go order one now, I think that's going to be the answer in the end, I was pretty sure the usbc was the problem, glad to know I'm not the only one.

Thank you for the help

1 Rookie

8 Posts

February 20th, 2022 18:00

me neither, it disappeared soon after we bought it, kinda scary honestly. That's why I gave the whole description from the unit.

I can't find any info about the usbc supporting video output or not, that's why i ended up here

Thanks, it seems that the USBC does not support video, which was one of my guesses, but Thanks!!!!

10 Elder

45.2K Posts

February 21st, 2022 11:00

@Quozlator If you want to understand further, check out all the various icons used for USB-C ports here vs their capabilities, and then see what's marked on your PC.

It's enough to make the head spin...

1 Rookie

8 Posts

February 22nd, 2022 18:00

So i bought a decent quality USB-A to HDMI for $80 and was able to plug it in, let windows 11 do it's thing and before i had a chance to try and download the suggested device drivers the screen lit up and works great! Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

10 Elder

45.2K Posts

February 23rd, 2022 11:00

@Quozlator Glad you got it working!

1 Message

June 18th, 2022 20:00

I bought the same computer and am trying tp do the same.  Did you buy the adapter like the top pic or the cord? adapter or cord.GIF

1 Rookie

8 Posts

June 20th, 2022 17:00

so i went the first route you have above. i got a usb to hdmi and it has worked great.

just buy a quality one is what i found in my research, but don't drive yourself mental

the only thing i've notyiced and it's not connected is that her machine regularly has the blue screen 0f death on it when she returns after the screens go black.

there are no messages and so i have no idea why it keeps doing this, i've done a ticket and they simply say that since our computer doesn't show a code with something wrong with the hardware its not our fault and tough luck.

its really ticking my wife off, and i may end up having to get her a new computer since this one regularly dies, and i'm not going to listen to my wife's legitimate complaints!!!!

10 Elder

45.2K Posts

June 20th, 2022 18:00

@Quozlator Power plan settings issues?

Reboot PC and open Device Manager. Expand list under USB. Double-click each USB entry and click its Power Management tab, if it has one. Uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off...". Repeat for all USB entries.

Now expand list under Human Interface Devices in Device Manager and uncheck that same box for any HID entry that has a Power Management tab. Exit Device Manager when done.

Next, open the Windows Power & Sleep screen. Click Additional Power Settings . On next screen identify the active Power plan and click Change Plan Settings . On next screen, click Change Advanced Power Settings .

On that last screen, disable Hibernation, Hybrid Sleep, USB Selective Suspend, and PCI Express Link State Management. Save the changes to the Power plan and reboot.

Does that make Wife happy?

1 Rookie

1 Message

April 18th, 2024 03:37

Did you ever solve this problem? Im also trying to add 3 monitors for an extended screen, one monitor works fine with the hdmi but since this Aio doesnt have a display port i cant add a third monitor, i tried usbc to display port it didn't work and usbc to hdmi didn't work either. Any idea how i can add a third monitor to this All in one dell inspiron?!

10 Elder

45.2K Posts

April 18th, 2024 19:00

@Mrtechneek - What PC model?  if this is an Inspiron 24-5400, you cannot use USB-C for video output on this model.

Get a USB 3 (PC) video dongle (standard USB "A" connector)>HDMI(monitor) or >DP(monitor), depending on ports available on 3rd monitor and your preference.

Make sure the dongle supports your version of Windows and the "recommended" (aka: "native" or "optimal") resolution of the monitor to be connected to the dongle.

( edited )

1 Rookie

6 Posts

July 23rd, 2024 17:03

Very easy to do... I have a dell 5400 with the same MB as your one, I have a GTX1070, and the below all works fine:

1 Buy a GTX1070 or similar with multiple HDMI ports on it

2 Buy an NVMe external graphics adapter ( NVMe External graphics card )

3 buy a Dell PSU on ebay such as THIS

4 remove panel on the back, if you have an NVMe installed, the OS is on this most probably, you need to Migrate it onto a 2.5 inch HDD

5 Plug in the adapter, using the NVMe adapter and fix it down with the screw or with thermal pad (double sided) dont let any metal parts touch

6 plug in the power supply to the graphics adapter
7 plug in the GTX1070

8 plug in the cable from the PC NVMe port into the graphics adapter

9 plug the power lead from the graphics adapter into the graphics card

10 turn all on and your pc will now boot up

you may need to turn of PXE boot in the boot options in the BIOS

you may need to install the latest graphics card drivers for the Nvidia GTX1070

you may need to configure window display settings


I currently run my games on the external graphics card on my 2nd monitor, i run all else on my AIO display (this is because it takes bandwidth to send the video signal back to the AIO so for games it lags, but for your usage it won't matter)

best of luck, should work on laptops, AIO PC, desktop PC, I have run mine for 4 months now, all fine

1 Rookie

6 Posts

February 10th, 2025 08:30

@Quozlator

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/inspiron-desktops/i-want-to-set-up-3-monitors-including-aio-that-is-running-my-wifes-setup/647f9ab3f4ccf8a8dee6c9b5?commentId=669fe2738377773af644bdb3

Read that post above that i commented..

You can also use a faster HDD than a Sata HDD (if you decide to take my advice about an external monitor, you can either have a slower graphics (1x lane PCIe gen 3) in the wifi card slot and keep the 4x version 3 PCIe SSD, use a SATA and have 32gbps Graphics, or have 2x pcie lanes if you swap out the wifi card with an SSD

Let me know if you have any questions

Let me know if you want the link, you will need to spend like $10 to buy a bluetooth usb and wifi dongle or lose bluetooth and swap internet to a lan cable.

SSD hdd goes in the bluetooth/wifi module slot and is half the speed (350MB/s) of the 2280 SSD pcie hdd, but its faster than using the 2.5inch SATA which is 150MB/s

You dont need to get this SSD, but you will have to either use a SATA 2.5 drive to boot from or get the 22xx SSD which I'll post a link to shortly

( edited )

1 Rookie

13 Posts

February 10th, 2025 16:09

Several of you responded to my  message from Saturday. I'm not sure where the message went because I don't see it today. I realized after posting that I had NOT tried to use a USB 3.0 HDMI adapter - mine was a USB-C. So off I went to the store to get one. That solved my issue. So really anyone else with the issue should probably start there. Thanks for the help.

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