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Advice on PC->HDTV hookups needed

BlueDestinyBlueDestiny Registered User regular
edited February 2009 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
My family tends to watch a lot of videos on the family computer (which is a 4 year old piece of junk), but the monitor is constantly greenish with slight distortion at the top. We had the bright idea of hooking up the computer to the TV, which is a Samsung Series 5 530 46 inch LCD HDTV. After perusing the local BestBuy, we bought a cable that uses the standard PC monitor male plug on both ends. However, connecting this to the computer and the TV resulted in the TV displaying an error message of "Can't interpret signal" or something. I assume that it's because the computer is very old, but any other explanations would be appreciated. If it really is a hardware problem, then I could try my personal computer with a long-ass cable, and any suggestions on adapters or cable types would be also appreciated.

BlueDestiny on

Posts

  • bigwahbigwah Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    What make/model is your graphics card? Did you turn on the second monitor? What resolution was the second monitor set to? Is the cable DVI?

    bigwah on
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  • BlueDestinyBlueDestiny Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    bigwah wrote: »
    What make/model is your graphics card? Did you turn on the second monitor? What resolution was the second monitor set to? Is the cable DVI?

    Cable was VGA, graphics card is S3 ProSavage DDR integrated, I don't think second monitor was even available.

    BlueDestiny on
  • bigwahbigwah Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Ah, sorry, thought you were hooking both up at the same time. If you arent, make sure the computer is at a resolution the TV can handle before hooking the TV up to it.

    bigwah on
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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Chances are your video card isn't outputting at a resolution your HDTV is capable of understanding. Try a bunch of different resolutions: ideally, find out what your HDTV's native resolution is, and then use that resolution or use a program like powerstrip to add that resolution to your options.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • BlueDestinyBlueDestiny Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    bigwah wrote: »
    Ah, sorry, thought you were hooking both up at the same time. If you arent, make sure the computer is at a resolution the TV can handle before hooking the TV up to it.

    That might be the problem. The choices of output only go up to around 1280 x 720 and the TV itself is about 1920 x 1080. The odd thing is the instructions for the TV state that certain resolutions will be auto-adjusted to fit the TV's format, yet it apparently couldn't do that with our computer's output.

    BlueDestiny on
  • taliosfalcontaliosfalcon Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    I have that exact same model of TV and it displays every resolution from 800x600 (lowest i've tried) to 1920x1080 no problem over VGA

    taliosfalcon on
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  • strebaliciousstrebalicious Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    I'm guessing you only have an AGP slot in there? If so, get you a cheap little AGP Video card, maybe with dual output so you can hook up the regular monitor for normal use and the HDTV for video use.

    I did that with an AGP 7600 GT (DVI to the TV, and VGA to the monitor). Works pretty nice, except some websites won't fullscreen on the TV (I have it set as a secondary, not a primary).

    Don't know if you were looking at spending any more money, though.

    strebalicious on
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