weird TV as a second monitor issue

[pheldd]

I have a TV set up as a second monitor. Using the S video out on my graphics card I have an S video to composite adapter into a standard def TV.

Once before, and now again last night, something happens to the display on my TV where the entire display is shrunk in on all sides, about 1 inch. Usually the display fills the entire TV screen, but when this issue happens there is just blank space all around, not cropped just shrunk.

Any ideas as to why this happens, or how I can fix it?



When this happend before (months ago) I had no idea what caused it or when, one day it was just like this. I tried everything I could think of to fix it, disabling and re enabling the second monitor, reconnecting all cables, etc. Nothing worked, then one day it just spontaneously fixed itself and I have no idea how. Last night while I was watching an AVI on my TV, my PC finished a download. WMP lagged for a second as my PC played a sound to signal the download had finished, as it lagged the TV screen went blank for an instant and when the pitcure came back it was shrunken and I have no idea how to fix it. Thanks for any help or advice here.

[Epicurus8a]

It sounds like an issue with the TV, not the computer or cables. Have you tried watching a regular TV program? if so, does it exhibit the same problem?

[Video Head]

what video card?
what s-video to composite adapter?

[pheldd]

It sounds like an issue with the TV, not the computer or cables. Have you tried watching a regular TV program? if so, does it exhibit the same problem?

Nope, regular TV is fine, so is VCR and settop DVD player. Only the feed from the PC is shrunk. I have to believe the problem comes from the PC because of the way the glitch last night seems to have triggered it.

what video card?
what s-video to composite adapter?

Video card is Geforce fx 5200. Adapter is just a plug from radio shack, similar to this.

[guns1inger]

Different resolutions or an overscan setting in the overlay controls of Nvidia control panel ?

[pheldd]

Different resolutions or an overscan setting in the overlay controls of Nvidia control panel ?

They are both set at 1024x768 resolution.

I am not really sure what I am doing with the nvidia overlay controls. I just tried the zoom control slider in a few different positions and nothing changes.

[Krispy Kritter]

Have you tried changing the resolution? Say to 800x600 just to see what happens, you can then switch back to 1024x768.

You may also want to ensure you have the latest video drivers.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I'd say definitely overscan. My GeForce 7600 is very funny like that. I still haven't really worked out how to get it to overscan all the time - some kind of witchcraft, I think.

Depends very much on the drivers. I can get the overscan to work on XP but not Vista. nVidia's XP drivers are much more flexible. IIRC, you have to choose the right TV standard. I select a bunch of different PAL variants and then NTSC (which is what I need). Somehow, that enables overscanning. But, like I say, it is a weird thing. The first time the overscan worked, I was delighted. A few days later, I spent hours trying to get it to work again - not so delighted.

[edDV]

800x600 is a more appropriate desktop for a simple TV out. 1024x768 vs 800x600 only applies to the desktop size before D/A. Actual NTSC resolution is closer to 480x480 in both cases.

When you say the picture shrinks do you mean the desktop shrinks or a video playing over the desktop shrinks? Is your player in full screen mode?

We need to know which display card you are using.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Video card is Geforce fx 5200.

[edDV]

Video card is Geforce fx 5200.

I have one of those.
Let's have details on driver settings.

[pheldd]

I tried changing the resolution and its still shrunk.

800x600 is a more appropriate desktop for a simple TV out. 1024x768 vs 800x600 only applies to the desktop size before D/A. Actual NTSC resolution is closer to 480x480 in both cases.

When you say the picture shrinks do you mean the desktop shrinks or a video playing over the desktop shrinks? Is your player in full screen mode?

We need to know which display card you are using.

What I mean by shrink is that the entire desktop shrinks, not just active windows. If I have no windows on my TV I usually just see my desktop background. That whole image is shrunk, black space all around.

I tried to take a picture of it but it didnt really come out well, so

If Miles here is my desktop background, this is what it usually looks like on my TV:



and this is what it looks like after this voodoo shrinkage happens:



..with the grey area on the screen actually black, I just made it grey to show you what I mean.

I am not really sure what you are looking for in terms of driver info. Driver is from Nvidia, version is 5.2.1.6 and it tells me its up to date.

[edDV]

Ahh OK. My driver is 6.14.10.9371 (10/22/06).

NVidia has a newer Release 163.71 (9/28/07) on their site.

I need to hook it to the TV and see if I can figure it out.

[edDV]

Got mine to work fine.

First did it from Display Properties Menu:

#1 Monitor is VGA 1650x1050
#2 Monitor (TV) is detected from cold boot. 800x600 makes a readable desktop.
Check "Extend My Windows Desktop onto this monitor".

TV looked full and fine.

Next I used the "New" NVIDIA Control Panel" under Advanced Settings and used "DualView" mode.
Everything worked with above settings.

Maybe your TV wasn't detected?

[pheldd]

Ok thanks edDV and everybody who replied here, after updating the driver I was able to adjust the overscan and fix this.

First off, I originally set up the second screen like you said ed, from display properties with TV as screen #2 and "Extend My Windows Desktop onto this monitor", but that was months ago and it worked fine.

But what I did do was go and get the updated driver, 163.71. I dont know why I thought I had up to date drivers but updating was the key. After the update the screen was still shrunken, but the new Nvidia settings control panel gave me many more options to tweek the screen with regard to overscan. My old Nvidia panel just had a small slider for overscan and it seemed to have no effect no matter what I did. But after the driver update there is a choice in the menu from the system tray icon for TV output. That brings up a panel that let me adjust the screen positioning. I can make the overscan bigger, smaller or incrementally nudge the screen in any direction. Simply hitting the button to restore defaults fixed the shrunken screen issue which was what I did first, then I adjusted the screen a little to make it perfect. So thanks for the advice everyone, I still find it weird that the screen was fine for so long (months and months), then suddenly one day something goes berzerk and stays that way.