Getting the Correct laptop Resolution on your TV - Help Pls !!

[andi1977dog]

Hi, im having a big problem getting the correct resolution on my tv , wondered if anyone can help pls. i have connected my laptop via a dvi - hdmi cable through an onkyo 606 amp into my sony lcd. i can see the windows xp display on my tv but everythings massive, i cannot understand how to change the laptop in windoes xp to get the output into the correct resolution so my tv looks the same as the laptop when its not connected, interestingly when i boot up the windows loading screen shows in perfect 1080p but the minute the "log into windows" screen appears it reverts to 480p and everythings huge. please help !! thanks in advance

[MickMack]

Sorry, I don't know so don't get your hopes up, but I'll happily throw a few ideas your way. First of all, can you connect your laptop directly to the tv? This would rule out the amp causing any problems. Secondly, my tv auto switches resolutions to meet the input, are you seeing the full screen on your tv but bigger, or are you seeing a portion of the full display? If it's the former you need to mess with your graphics settings for your second output. You can get your graphics card to display a "1" and a "2", on your displays to recognise them, then adjust the settings for the appropriate one from within the display properties window.

Try these for now till an expert get back to you.

[andi1977dog]

Hi, thanks for getting back to me . i can see a full screen on my tv but its only a small centre section of the normal windows desktop from my laptop, i dont have a cable to link directly as i go from dvi to hdmi in the back of the amp.

i know the settings section you refer to where you can change betwen "1" and "2" and then you press "identify" in windows to see which screen is being used, so far i cannot seem to get it to recognise "2" so i cant edit the settings, i think this may be my problem.

if anyone has any ideas please throw them my way, thanks again

[MickMack]

If you right click on your desktop and choose properties, this brings up your display properties, click on the settings tab, now just under the picture of the monitor it should display something like "gforce 8600 on default monitor". This should be a drop down menu if you are using two displays, change it to the second display then adjust the settings for your tv.

If this doesn't work click on the advanced button near the bottom, this will bring up a box with lots of tabs, but it now depends on the graphic card and drivers you are using. I can't tell you what to do at the moment cos I'm at work (restricted PC), but there will be a tab specific to your graphic card that will have dual screen setup info on it. Set a restore point and then have a play, if it goes pear shaped, you can always restore it.

Mick.

[cjb]

The above advice is good... it depends if your specific graphic card is designed for full dual display. I have had similar problems, but found you have to have the cable connected and the TV switched on and switched to the HDMI channel before u boot the laptop, otherwise it wasn't recognising dual display.
I then had much truble getting a full TV resolution because the laptop set resolutions do not match my 32" picture format.. I settled for a slight overscan, which is ok for most things, I believe you can find software that can tailor the laptop to fit a TV display.. but have been reluctant to play around with a £600 TV for the sake of a perfect picture.
Good luck :god:

[andi1977dog]

thanks for everyones help !! this forum is brilliant !! ive solved the problem by downloading the latest drivers from dell and then messing around with teh graphics cards settings, im very happy with the picture seeing as its just a standard works laptop im using .

only other problem is how do i get the laptop to stop outputting the sound and to feed the sound t hrough my amp, any ideas anyone ??!?! thanks again

[cjb]

Assuming you have a headphone socket on the laptop, source an audio lead with a jack plug to phono plugs ( altho it depends on the actual connectors you have on your amp ). I get 100 watts per channel from my laptop.:grin:

[andi1977dog]

cheers, im running a dvi to hdmi led from the laptop docking station, is there not a way to get the sound via that cable instead of running another lead ?? thanks again, i appreciate it

[cjb]

cheers, im running a dvi to hdmi led from the laptop docking station, is there not a way to get the sound via that cable instead of running another lead ?? thanks again, i appreciate it

HDMI leads end to end contain audio, DVI only has video feed. You might find a special adapter at somewhere like Maplin which could combine audio with video but it would still be a lash up. May as well stay with separate leads.. sometime soon I expect HDMI output from laptops will be the norm. Anyway, to feed your HiFI amp you need a separate audio feed .