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davideo7Flag for United States of America

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Help hooking up Windows XP Laptop to LCD HDTV as Computer Monitor

I hooked up my 46" LCD HDTV to my laptop but my computer screen isn't showing up on the TV, as if they aren't connected.

Here is the TV I own:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10929991

And here are the cables I'm using to connect the Laptop to the TV
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2844466
and
http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Unlimited-PCM-2296-06-Single-Cable/dp/B0007MWE1E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1242772342&sr=8-1

And in case it matters, here's my laptop
http://uk.shopping.com/xPF-TOSHIBA-P25-S5262-P25S5262-Factory-Serviced

I just need to know what I might be doing wrong or what else I need to be doing to use my TV as my laptop monitor (or simply as a 2nd monitor).
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jamietoner
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Avatar of yoogi88
yoogi88

I'm no AV expert, but I don't think your can convert VGA analog to HDMI with that setup.
For you TV and laptop setup, simply 15-pin VGA cable or S-Video should do, of course you will get much better resolution with VGA cable.
Go to Display Properties, click on the 2nd screen, and check Extend my windows desktop to this monitor. If this does not work, you need to go into your graphic settings. Usually a control panel such as Nvidia Control Panel. Here you have extra options to apply this as a 2nd monitor, or a clone monitor.
scrn.bmp
Thats a whole lotta cable adaptations going on there.

IF you right hand click on your desktop and bring up the display properties box, click on settings.

IF the laptop can see the TV connected in here it will show as being an additional monitor. This will be greyed out. IF you click on this monitor the option will ungrey and a blank tickbox will appear to extend my desktop onto this montior. Put a tick in this box and click apply. The desktop will now be enabled and the tv should come to life with the background from your laptop screen desktop. Unless you turn the LCD off on the laptop ( as described with the Function key procrcure below) you will not be able to set the external display as your primary display.

IF its not in there , try using the function key and one of the F keys with the picture of the computer monitor on it. Hold down the function key and press the key with the montior and it will cycle through the available display options such as external monitor and Laptop LCD and also just external montior.

If this doesnt work , try and connect your laptop up to a regular monitor and follow the function key procedure above to check the HD15 VGA out works correctly and then start to troubleshoot your cable if this does
It may sound dummy but what happens if you press and hold FN key and F5? also decresase your screen resolution a bit and try again, if your TV does not support the resolution, it won't show it.
I belive the adapter is  for conecting a computer with a digital/analog DVI video output to a analogic, VGA, display.
The cable is for connecting a computer to digital video output to a HDMI device
As your computer only has VGA it only has analog signal so you can not connect it to a digital signal input, HDMI
You can connect your LapTop to the TV by using one of these two methods
S-Video, poor quality for working good to watch videos, no need to change anything
VGA, you need to set the resolution of the video output to 1920 x 1080 which is the native resolution of the TV, your computer computer can handle 2048 x 1536 BUT you may need to increase to the maximum the memory used by the video subsystem in your LapTop