PC to TV through HDMI cable, PC refuses to detect TV

Right. The HDMi port is on the actual motherboard.

The graphics card which your VGA cable leaves will prevent the motherboards own graphics from working, hence there's no output from your HDMi port. That's how it works, you can have one or the other - but not both functioning together.

You have two choices.

1) Take out the graphics card, load the drivers for the motherboards own graphics, and connect both HDMi and the VGA/DViD to your TV and monitor respectively.

2) Fit a better graphics card which has HDMi and VGA (and probably DViD) outputs, load the drivers for it, and use that instead.

Kudos to Duzzy for the brainwave...

Okay, that actually makes sense, because I remember being told that the VGA port won't work and that I had to use the other one. I understand that... unfortunately I don't have money for a better graphics card, and I can't use my onboard graphics cause it'll run UT2004 like total crap. I guess I will just have to route the monitor's VGA cable every time I want to switch. But at least I understand why it won't work now, so thanks very much for the lesson :)

It's not so much a lesson as just a learning curve...

Without knowing what your motherboard is there's every chance that you have an older AGP type graphics card, which have been superseded by far more powerful PCiE cards.

If your's is an AGP type slot then sadly there aren't many AGP cards left on the market today.

A KVM switch is your cheapest option...

It's a GeForce GTS 250, definitely mid range, if even that by now. All I needed was something to run UT2004 and Bioshock, not necessarily Crysis. It does that job, so it's good enough for me.

I will have to look into a KVM switch some time. Probably when I get my income tax return. Thanks for all the help again, everyone, I appreciate it a lot.

Well my drivers are a little out of date, I'm updating them now, but I don't think it's going to magically make this work.

It looks like everyone there is saying they didn't work...

As your graphics card has a spare DVI port a DVI to HDMI adaptor will maybe work although I can't guarantee it as I have never tried it. In theory it should work but it won't pass the sound to the TV. My TV has a specific HDMI port labeled as "HDMI IN 3 (DVI)" and a stereo jack next to it labeled "DVI Audio In". You could check your TV manual for anything similar, I don't know if there's any risk plugging it into a standard HDMI.

If you consider buying a DVI to HDMI adaptor try to find a local store that will happily refund your money if it doesn't work or you could borrow one if you know any one thats has one. Make sure you get the right one, DVI male, HDMI female.

Don't want to make you jealous but I'm lucky my GTS 250 has a HDMI port.