Using my TV as a monitor via an HDMI cable (Windows installation)

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by sawa, Feb 10, 2017.

  1. Palladin

    Palladin MDL Senior Member

    Feb 1, 2014
    476
    248
    10
    I just did it this weekend and it was an ordeal to get it working but it was worth it.
    Long winded discussion to follow.

    At first I tried connecting my new Dell Laptop running Windows 10 with a built in HDMI to my TV. No signal.
    I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. Searching around the internet I found that lots of people were having problems using Win 10. Many said it worked fine using Win-7 until they upgraded, and many like me with a newer laptop already configured with Win 10 didn't work either. After spending an afternoon trying to get it to work, I just gave up.

    Somewhat frustrated I decided to bite the bullet and install Win-7 on my Laptop to see if it made a difference. I had an extra hard drive to experiment with, so I could keep the original hard disk in case I wanted to go back. The laptop came configured from Dell UEFI and I wanted to convert it to MBR for Win-7 and the official Microsoft solution was to delete all the partitions and then convert the drive. Unfortunately I had 3 partitions, a boot drive (60GB), a back-up drive (100GB) and an archive drive (800GB) and I wasn't looking forward to having to copy almost 1000GB of data when it would be easier to just get rid of the boot drive.

    Win 10 creates a bunch of stub partitions and even when I put the laptop drive in a USB enclosure I couldn't remove the partitions using Windows Disk Management Software. I remembered using Aoemi Partition Assistant a while back and wondered if it could help. Sure enough it removed the stub partitions no problem, and the boot partition as well, and merged all of it into a new boot partition. But it was still UEFI and Windows didn't recognize it. But I overlooked an option in Aoemi to convert UEFI --> MBR. Once the hard disk was back in the external enclosure it was a couple clicks and it was done, and once the hard drive was back in the Laptop, Windows happily installed Win7 on the new boot partition. And an added bonus after all that knarly configuration the Backup and Archive Partitions were still intact with all the data.

    Once that little detour was overcome the big question was would my Laptop connect to my TV?
    Happily the answer was yes. :clap:
    Turned out to be a no brainer. There was a lot of discussion on how to connect it and in what order, but my experience was it didn't matter. Once the HDMI cable was plugged into the Laptop and TV it worked without a hitch.

    There were some initial challenges getting the best resolution. My laptop came with somewhat crippled graphics, 1376 x 768 and if I tried to use it at that resolution all I got was a black screen on the TV. Setting it lower to 1024 x 768 worked but it was a bit grainy. I changed the resolution on the Laptop a little bit at a time until I found the max resolution my TV would display, 1370 x 768. Hard to believe that 1376 didn't work, but 1370 did. Go figure. The picture quality is quite good, at that resolution and I'm very happy with the results.

    So two things need to happen. First you need to determine the max resolution that you TV will display, and then pair that with your computer resolution. For example if you have HD graphics on you computer but you TV's max resolution is 1370 x 768 then that's all you are going to get. Conversely if your TV can display 1920 x 1080 and your computer's max resolution is 1376 x 768 then that's all you are going to get displayed on your TV.

    The other thing is the signal. A fast internet connection is a must, and a direct connection to the Laptop is the best option. But if you have a good wireless router that can broadcast that signal to the Laptop then that is another option. That's how mine is setup. I get 72MBS on the laptop in the living room and the video streams flawlessly.

    I'm sure that there was a way to get Win-10 working but I couldn't figure it out. Although somewhat tedious and time consuming, the conversion to Win-7 worked best for me, but YMMV.

    .
     
  2. Tiger-1

    Tiger-1 MDL Guru

    Oct 18, 2014
    7,897
    10,733
    240
    @Palladin one word CONGRATS you make your job as true geek I'm very happy see thread as this still have people that use your brain and love computers, don't stop never your research I'm sure that you only reach a lot of knowledge same when take a lot of time; good luck yet you have another option someday try use any version of Linux only for testing what you think dude?:g::worthy:
     
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...
  3. Palladin

    Palladin MDL Senior Member

    Feb 1, 2014
    476
    248
    10
    Thanks, appreciate the "attaboy". :biggrin:
    I have Linux Mint 17.2 on an E2Boot drive and that was the next thing I was going to try if Aoemi Partition Assistant didn't work, but as it turns out I didn't have to use Linux Mint. I knew that Linux Mint would access the hard drive and would probably delete the partitions but I wasn't sure if it would convert the UEFI to MBR without losing any data. Can you comment on that one way or the other in case I need to do something like this again.
     
  4. Tiger-1

    Tiger-1 MDL Guru

    Oct 18, 2014
    7,897
    10,733
    240
    @Palladin well I think that more secure is use another hdd so you avoid lost important data/partitions; is better ever make backup before some "adventure" same as dvd media or external hdd good luck with your try using tv as a monitor while I haven't time to make this experience now
     
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...