How do I output to my HDTV???

sibath · 30 Jan 2012

I bought my VGX-XL301 in August 2007 and it cam installed with Vista home addition and upgraded to Windows 7 Professional in April 2010. I have the computer linked to my Samsung HDTV via an HDMI connection.

Everything worked fine up until recently.

I am working on the computer and then switch HD inputs to watch TV. After a time the compuiter goes into sleep mode. The next time I want to use the computer, I press a key to bring it out of sleep mode. I switch it from the TV HD input to the PC HD input but no picture comes up.

I have to force a shut down by holding in the power button and then turn on. The PC then goes through the boot up and the PC picture appears, however sometimes it takes 2 or 3 forced shutdowns to make it work.

I have upgraded the driver on the graphics card as I thought that might be the problem.

Any ideas be gratefully received.

Cheers

sibath

DeaconFrost · 30 Jan 2012

Why not stop using sleep mode? I have never used it on any computer do to the various issues when waking up. If not, could you try setting the HDTV as the primary display? Are there drivers available for your TV?

sibath · 30 Jan 2012

Thanks DeaconFrost. I have my PC constantly on but spend more time watching TV. The problem is when I want to use my PC, I switch HDMI inputs to go to the PC and it's in sleep mode as it hasnt been used for a while and when I press a key to bring it out of sleep mode, it fires up but no picture is pushed to the TV.

How would I set the HDTV as the primary display, more than happy to do this as I only use the HDTV with this computer.

Cheers

sibath · 01 Feb 2012

Hi Deaconfrost. I have turned the hibernate option to never and this seems to have worked. However what are the implications of having the PC constantly on?????

seavixen32 · 01 Feb 2012

Other than wear and tear on your hardware and increased power costs, none at all really.

If you were using your computer as a server or it was connected to a network for overnight backups you would need to leave it switched on all the time anyway.

sibath · 01 Feb 2012

Cheers Seavixen32. Cant believe the only solution is to leave the PC on, but if thats the case then hey. Cheers

bigmck · 01 Feb 2012

sibath said:

Cheers Seavixen32. Cant believe the only solution is to leave the PC on, but if thats the case then hey. Cheers

I don't ever turn mine off except maybe once a week just to reboot. It seems to work better if it is rebooted every week or so.

Cancerous · 02 Feb 2012

Yep, my laptop uptime is about a week right now.
Would be ~3 weeks if I didn't have to reboot for windows update -_-"

fseal · 02 Feb 2012

The ability to auto-detect the HDMI attached device when coming out of sleep and correct for it's possibly changed state (you turned it on or off while it was asleep) is 100% entirely the problem of the video driver. I've had this work in one version then fail in another, then work again later.

I have a computer hooked permanently to a monitor which is primary and an HD TV through HDMI as a secondary, and the existence or absence of the HDMI connected "monitor" when coming out of sleep or even booting and switching the TV on and off (when computer is off, asleep or awake) has been somewhat of a crapshoot, but again, it's up to the driver to do things right in that situation. My current setup finally handles all cases I commonly throw at it fine so I guess I'm never updating the video driver again

I would just try updating to the latest driver for your card and hope they fixed it :/

(PS, I actually have the HDMI cable going to a switch splitter that allows me to direct it to an TV or a projector which are running at two different resolutions! and even that works finally

)