How do i know exactly what cables to connect from tv to laptop

You may need a different cable or gadget but you did not specify an exact model. You may be able to use vga and separate audio out to a TV or s-video
cables:
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Connecting laptop to TV as an external display





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one cable HDMI Gold Male To VGA HD 15 Male 15Pin Adapter Cable 6FT 1

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or others like an adapter if you have a cable:


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HDMI Female to VGA Male Converter Audio Adapter Support 1080P Signal...

It's very easy to do it. If you have the cable, you just connect it behind your laptop, and behind the tv. If you don't have a cable for it, then just go to "Best Buy" (i recommend it), and buy a cable, they know exactly what it is.

If Your TV and Laptop have HDMI Port then you just need a HDMI Cable.
But if you dont have HDMI port. then you need two cables one from video and one for audio.
For Video you either VGA Cable(if you have VGA Port in your TV) or VGA to RCA Cable (Yellow Pin will be for video)
For audio You Need 3.5mm pin to RCA (white and Red for audio).
This pic is of VGA to RCA Cable

It depends on your TV

If your tv has a Computer VGA connection you can directly connect the VGA connector from the left side of the laptop to the connector on the tv

If there isn't then you could go buy a S-Video to RCA cable at radioshack and connect the S-Video port on the laptop to a video in connection on the TV

For sound you can connect the speaker/headphone jack on the laptop to the tv using a cable either going direct from 8mm to 8mm or from 8mm to RCA...either can be found at radioshack

Let me know if you need anything else!!

It depends on what kind of TV you have. If you have a flat-panel LCD or plasma TV, it may have a VGA connection already installed. If that is the case, all you need is a standard VGA cable to connect from your notebook to your TV.

If you have a TV without a VGA connection you will need a scan converter to convert your signal from VGA to RCA or composite video signal. These can be purchased online or from electronics stores like Radio Shack. You plug your VGA connection from the computer to the scan converter, then RCA or composite video cables from the converter to the TV.

Hope this helps. Please take a moment to rate this solution. Thanks.

Hello, I'm from the Netherlands and I had the exact same problem with my philips lcd...

So what I did, was upgrading the software of my videocard (nvidia.com),this resolved my problem of giving a error on my laptop and restarting.

Then I got the message on my tv: "video not supported' , this I don't know exactly how i resolved this, but i tried fn+f4 a couple times. If that doesn't work you have to do something with the nvidia control panel (right click on desktop).

So now i had picture, but no sound.

To enable sound from your laptop to your tv you have to go to control panel>sound> set the SPDIF to your standard sounddevice and tick the box with wma audio something, tick out the other boxes.

I hope this will resolve some of your problems and others who have the same problem.

greetings,

Sam

1. Ensure that the connection is a direct cable connection from the PC to the TV, no converters or cable adapters as these are generally not Bi-directional which is required for a PC to see a TV.
2. Try turning on the TV, then booting the computer. Some devices require the initialization signal from the computer to activate the port on the TV.
3. See if the TV input select has an option to search for active signals.

IF none of that helps, post the exact model of TV and computer as well as the type of cable connection you are using.

The biggest stopper most of the time is a cable converter.

Yes you will need a 3.5mm to RCA/composite cable and you should also most likely have an S-video out on your laptop so you will need an s-video cable.
If you need more help give me exact make/model of laptop. Also what connections your tv has.
Thanks,
Lee

you may need either a s-video cable 6bucks and under... an rca cable (can be found everywhere) ot a vga cable if your tv supports it.... about 30 bucks need a specific laptop model.......in order to know what exactly you need!

The resolution and refresh rates have to match exactly to the TV for it to work correctly with the computer.

The newer computers are using much faster refresh rates by default. Their default resolution is also different.

Consult the manual for the TV and see if the computer's external monitor output can be set to match to what the TV exactly requires. Both the refresh rate and resolution are critical.


Jerry G.