Connecting laptop to HDTV Question

[Sprayed]

I have a 42 in Plasma HD TV and I would like to connect it to my laptop. My TV has a monitor port or I can connect with S-Video. I can get a picture, however I am not able to adjust the resolution on the TV. It is using the resolution of my laptop and everything is stretched and too big. My laptop only has a driver for 1280 x 800.

I am using S-Video because I don't have a monitor cable right now. Do I need a different driver or is it possible for my computer to recognize the res of the TV? Or, would the monitor cable do the trick. I'm a idiot when it comes to figuring this shit out. What do I need to do in order to 20 table on my plasma?

[vqc]

whats the resolution of your TV? Is it a 720P or a 1080i/P TV?

[Sprayed]

It can read 1080p but not i. The Best Buy guys said that I would need to get a new graphics card. But since I have a laptop, I would need to probably get a whole new computer since the graphics card is embedded in the motherboard. My folks purchased a 22" wide screen monitor for me for x-mas since I thought that this would solve my problem. But, if I'm unable to do what I want to do, then I'll just use it as a dual monitor.

[vqc]

Well short of getting drivers to output at a certain resolution I'm not sure if there is anything else you can do. What graphics card do you have?

[vqc]

I would be surprised if your laptop could handle a 22" LCD (1680 x 1050?)but not 1920x 1080.

[Sprayed]

The highest res is 1280 x 800 on my laptop. My laptop has a 17" monitor. That's why I thought that it could handle a 22".

[swiggidy]

What TV? Check their website for drivers.

I have a Samsung LCD and they don't make drivers, it's just plug N play (thus only works with windows), I struggled to get it to work right, what I finally had to do is hook up the TV, then restart my computer. Then it worked fine for some reason.

Unless you have a way way old laptop you don't need a new video card. The kid from BestBuy is a retard.

[Sprayed]

Unless you have a way way old laptop you don't need a new video card. The kid from BestBuy is a retard.

I figured as much. I can get it to show-up on my TV, but the resolution is too big. So, really no advantage to running things on my TV. I thought that I would be able have more surface area to put multiple tables up. Not the case. I'll just take the 22" and run dual monitors with my laptop. When we get a house, I'll have to breakdown and buy a desktop with all the goodies. Thanks guys for your help.

[Sprayed]

Problem solved. I just got a 22" Westinghouse monitor and it is stink'n awesome. I have it hooked up to my laptop and using it as a dual monitor. I can probably put like 10 tables or so without overlapping. I nutted my pants when I hooked it up.

[JeffreyGB]

Going back to the TV, using a monitor cable probably would also have solved your problem.

The kid at Best Buy was a retard, as mentioned above. The graphics card in your laptop can accommodate most resolutions; the laptop screen, however, cannot.

The problem with using the S-Video connection is that the laptop isn't able to get any information regarding what resolution to output. That should be something you that worked properly if you connected the TV using a monitor cable - though if you were mirroring the image from the laptop, one or the other would have a few issues with too little or too much space showing up.