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Connot Connect laptop to TV

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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For the past several years, I’ve hooked up my Compaq laptop (with Windows Vista) to my 2001 Toshiba TV via S-video cable and everything worked great.

A few weeks ago, my Compaq died and I got a new Dell Inspiron 15 (N5050) with Windows 7 Home Premium. The Dell did not have a S-video port, so I hooked it up to my TV via VGA to component. Now, I cannot get anything on the TV as I did with my old Compaq laptop.

When I plug the VGA cable into the port on the Dell laptop, the screen gets thinner. I click on display to set up the 2nd monitor (TV), I click Clone. For monitor 2, it says “Generic non PnP monitor”. I click ok, but nothing ever appears on the tv screen.

On the TV, I’ve doubled checked the cable and I made sure I set it to the right input source. Still nothing.

Can anyone help?

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Graphics card Master
Laptop Expert

one woops is did you hit the f key to tell the laptop video chipset to output to both screens at the same time??? if you did it may be that the older tv cant handle the video setting your trying to send to it. i would try 640 by 480 on it or see if in the video setup that you can tell windows it a tv monitor.
Graphics card Master
Laptop Expert

VGA to component cables only work if you set the GPU to output component signals on the VGA port. Not all GPU have this option. you will have to look in the control settings.

If you are cloning the display the laptop must be set to a resolution and refresh rate the TV can display.

I bought a converter box, and that got the images onto the TV screen. Now I have another problem:

When I plug the VGA cable into the laptop, for 5 seconds, I get images on both screens (laptop and TV). Then, both screens go black and then I only get images on the laptop. Then, after 5 secs, the screen goes black and then I get images on both screen again....and so on. Because I only have 5 secs, I don't have time to make any changes unless I unplug the VGA cable.

Also, each time the screens switch (from 2 to 1 back to 2 to 1...) for five secs, I hear the sound that you hear when you plug in a thumbdrive.



Any ideas?

The problem has been solved! It had to do with the converter. It was getting its power from the laptop via USB port. I have a USB outlet power adapter that I use to charge my iPod when I’m away from a computer, so I plugged the converter to the power adapter and I have not had a problem since. I guess there was some kind of conflict with the converter and the USB port on the laptop.

Thanks for the help!
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