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  1. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    United States
    Search Comp PM
    First off, hi! I'm new to this forum, drawn by my frustration not being able to make my PC send a video signal to my non-HD, non-digital TV.

    Second, here's my question, which I hope ya'll can help with. I've spent days seaching forums and help centers and whatnot and I'm still stumped. Probably because I'm too dense to understand my predicament, but I'm hoping someone can show me the errors of my ways.

    Q: I've got a cheap converter box to allow my to take my VGA output and put it into my NTSC analog TV. I've gottne to the point where I can actually see the computer desktop on my TV.

    Almost.

    Actually what I see is just the picture I'm using as my desktop background/wallpaper. I don't see any icons and I don't see the mouse pointer. I've played with the resolution enough to be able to get everything from part of the picture to the entire picture show up on my TV. But I can't actually see anything else. No icons, no mouse, no Windows Media Player, no RealPlayer, no SopCast, no startbar, no start menu, no icon tray, etc.

    Ideally I'd like to watch streaming video on the TV.

    I'm using an Acer TravelMate 4070 with Windows XP Pro SP2 (plus whatever updates Microsoft sends me every month) I've got a GigaWare PV to TV converter box. I looked with my Device Manager for the info on my video card and could not find anything, so maybe I'm hamstrung by not having one (but then, would I have a VGA port to start with?) or maybe if I do have one (I think I do) it's not up to par?

    I've tried everything I can think of with my very small brain. I've used the display control panel to set the TV as my second monitor (and when I hit the "show monitor" option a nice big "2" shows up on the TV screen). I've used different wires, I've restarted the computer when everything was connected, all the usual know-nothing actions. I

    Does anyone out there have any experience with this? And if so, can you help me out?

    Thank you everyone for helping and/or having the patience with this request. I seared throughout the forums here but couldn't find any threads that dealt with this problem.
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  2. You are set up with two desktops. You should be able to drag windows or icons from one desktop to the other. Note that the logical relative position of the desktops is indicated on the Settings page of the Display Properties dialog.

    If you want the same thing on both displays put them in mirror mode.
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  3. Member
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    Feb 2008
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    United States
    Search Comp PM
    I"ll try that.

    I'm not finding "mirror mode" on my Displays control panel, but I'm also not attached to another monitor at this time.

    Thanks for your help, which I may need more of as I try to make this happen.
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  4. Unfortunately, the terminology and setup procedures vary depending on the graphics card and driver version. Mirror mode (nVidia) might be called clone mode (ATI) or something else. And all the display options may not be available unless you install full featured drivers and software downloaded from the chipset manufacturer (Nvidia, ATI, Intel, etc), like ATI's Catalyst Control Center and Nvidia Control Panel.

    You might be able to get mirror mode by setting both displays to the same resolution and turning off the "extend desktop onto this monitor" option.
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  5. Member
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    Feb 2008
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    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Yeah, it's called "clone mode" and it really doesn't want to work with this set up! I get a blue screen on my TV and when I hit "reset" on the converter I can see the deaktop for about a second before the screen comes back. Does this on all the various refreshing and aspect ratios.

    But I did get the "desktop extension" thing to work, so that's a BIG step forward.
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  6. Member edDV's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Northern California, USA
    Search Comp PM
    Acer support should be able to explain the settings. The Intel GMA 900 graphics chipset has dual monitor support. The scan converter may not be detected or you may be sending an unsupported resolution or refresh rate (try 800x600 and 60Hz).

    Check "extend desktop onto this monitor" for second monitor.
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