A bit of help needed getting laptop to work with Plasma

Noel

Established Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2000
Messages
421
Reaction score
8
Points
79
:lease:

Hi all. I took delivery today of a Fujitsu-Siemens Myrica P-50 plasma TV and have been trying to get my laptop to play some HD content through the VGA connection, with no success.

The specs are:

Plasma - 50in, 1366x768 resolution, although according to the manual it supports resolutions much higher than this.

PC - 3.33Ghz, 1GB RAM, ATI radeon 9700 graphics card.

I can watch the HD clips fine on the PC but when I try to output it to the plasma the best resolution I can get (despite there being a setting in the Display Properties - Settings menu to set Monitor 2 at 1280x720 which is exactly what I want) is 480p @75Hz, which of course doesn't allow HD. Monitor 1 (the laptop screen) stays at 1280x800.

I'm at a loss here as this is the first time I have ever tried to connect a PC to a TV - does anyone have any suggestions as I'm sure it's something simple?

Many thanks,

Noel
 
Hi
The problem might well be the refresh rate - if you set it to 60hz for the plasma you probably will be fine! I presume the laptop doesnt have a dvi port. If it did, you can use a DVI to HDMI lead and get the benefit of this 'all digital' set up
tell us how you get on
EP
 
Thanks Earplugs, will give it a try. I downloaded Powerstrip last night too, so I'll have another go today.

One thing I was thinking might be the problem - can my graphics card output two different resolutions to two monitors? (i.e. the laptop screen and the plasma). If not, that would explain a lot....

Thanks again,

Noel
 
....and no, no DVI port on laptop, sadly.

Cheers,

Noel
 
Sadly, no joy. I can get to the point where I have monitor 1 (laptop screen) to 1280x800 and monitor 2 set to 1280x720 but the second I press function F4 to switch, something forces the plasma to 480p. Any other suggestions, it's doing my head in?

Thanks,

Noel
 
Have now tried using powerstrip and when I use the disply options - configure screen it won't let me set the display any higher than 640x480. I can reset it down to 640x400 OK, but on anything higher it just gives me a "clunk" noise when I click apply.

Very briefly after pressing function f4 to switch between monitors I had a very high resolution appear which I hadn't set anywhere but the screen was split in half horizontally....

I know the card will support 1280x720 and I know the screen will accept it. What am I doing wrong :lease:

Thanks,

Noel
 
Hi,

I tried one last thing on Powerstrip - the "hide resolutions not accepted by monitor", and then the only options left were 640x400 and 640x480!

I know the screen will support higher than this, it's been displaying them (albeit briefly and randomly). I have spend three hours on web searches and on here looking for anything similar and have failed. Please help?

Thanks,

Noel
 
"Hi Noel, how are you?"

"Fine Noel, yourself?"

"Pretty good. Having some trouble getting my PC to work with my TV..."

"Really, what's the problem?"

"See the thread above - 71 people have read it but only one has responded. It gets quite lonely posting to yourself"

"Looks like you're on your own then mate."

"Yes, it would appear so....."
 
booo

how about makingn the plasma the primary monitor,then see if you can set the resolution that way?can you set VGA out to be the main display?

its probably that the laptop cant run two high res screens at the same time...not enough graphics power.

seems a bit confused over whether ur using a Pc or a laptop?
 
Thanks for the response Andy:D

I'm using a laptop - sorry, I'm not great with computer terminology.

I have tried just using the plasma and turning the laptop screen off, but it's not happy with that either. Most frustratingly, every so often, for no apparent reason, the display switches to 1280x1024, even though nothing is at that setting.......

All I wanted to do was preview HD before SkyHD arrives....:(

Cheers,

Noel
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom