General Question

SuperMouse's avatar

I need help watching my laptop through my flat screen.

Asked by SuperMouse (30845points) March 14th, 2010

I know we have the audio and video cables hooked up correctly and in the right places, the problem we are having is switching monitors from the laptop screen to the television. When we use the fn+f4 function it switches the picture but the only way to switch it back to the laptop is to hard boot it. According to the fellow at the Geek Squad (who wants to charge me $200 to come out and look at it), the problem is probably with a setting on the laptop. Any ideas on what that setting might be and how to fix it? Any help is greatly appreciated!

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5 Answers

hannahsugs's avatar

Is it a windows or Mac laptop? On a windows machine, go to the “display properties” menu, and click on the tab that says “settings”. This should let you choose which monitor to use as the primary screen. You can also choose to “extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor,” creating a side-by-side set up where your laptop screen is still on, and your TV becomes another monitor. This is how I use my laptop for watching movies on my tv.

Sariperana's avatar

Do you have a HDMI
cord connecting the two? Once you plug in that cord from the TV to the laptop- it is just a matter of changing to channel!

Pretty_Lilly's avatar

You might want to check your laptop’s videocard specifications as most laptops have substandard Vid card compare to desktop PCs.

se_ven's avatar

If you have windows 7 you can use the windows key + P to switch between the various settings.

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