Using TV as external monitor, keeps dis- and re-connecting

[aceizace]

Hi there, I having some troubles with using my TV as a second monitor with my laptop. The TV is an Acoustic Solutions ASTV 3619WS and my laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A100. I am using the VGA connection of my laptop (I imagine it's XVGA really, or is it SVGA, I don't actually know the difference) and the VGA connection of my TV. Also, I'm using Vista 32-bit and I have an NVIDIA Geforce Go 7300.

When I first plugged it in, my desktop appeared on the monitor fine, however when I started to change the settings (which I did straight away) - which side of my first monitor it is, resolution, and refresh rate - the TV started disconnecting and reconnecting, with the image coming on and off. If I tried to change the settings again it didn't change on the TV, and it kept resetting. I thought it might be my GPU driver so I changed twice (I also wanted to try and find one that let me set a custom resolution - which I never did), but it didn't help. One thing I noticed was that in the NVIDIA control panel the TV changed from "LCD" to "CRT" and back again every time it disconnected and reconnected (the TV is an LCD).

I gave up for a while and unplugged it, later I plugged it in again, and now the screen is showing fine. I can change the resolution (although for some reason my current driver only lets me have it in 60hz) a few times with no problems, but then it says it couldn't do it due to permissions or something, and then resets to 800 x 600, but then I am able to change it again. So I've left it at a resolution and it works, it even let me set it to the left of my laptop monitor.

However, I am still getting the disconnect and reconnect sound playing, and if I go into the device manager, the monitor disappears and reappears. But the picture is still showing on the TV the whole time. Occasionally it flickers black, but not every time, it's only flickered once while I was typing this. This has completely baffled me, at least before it was actually disconnecting because the screen was losing its picture.

Can anyone help? My only idea is to somehow permanently install the TV so it shows in the device manager the whole time, but there is no "generic non-pnp monitor" option on the add hardware wizard - which is what the TV is listed as when it's showing. Thanks for reading!

-
Andrew

[Bjs]

Permissions - make sure your user account has admin privileges .

You might want to have a look at : https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/connect-pc-to-lcd-tv-t310729.html

You need to setup the output to suit the lcd screen supported mode , using the current connection method .

S-video may be a better option .

[Krispy Kritter]

The native resolution for this TV is 1336 x 800 pixels, however, that may not be a supported input resolution. The user manual should list the recommended and/or supported input resolutions.

[aceizace]

Since posting I have had on and off problems with the TV. Yesterday the TV was plugged in when I started the computer, when I turned it on it was doing the flickering on and off, with the disconnect and connect sounds. So I unplugged it and plugged it back in, and then it displayed the picture fine, but the sounds continued. I just turned off the sounds as a temporary solution. I started my computer today, and it was flickering again, although this time unplugging it and plugging it back in didn't help. It continued to do it, with the picture resetting on the screen. It even reset all the settings as well, as if it had "uninstalled" the TV and reinstalled it. Also, when I gave up with it and unplugged the VGA cable, I get an error message telling me Runndll32 has to be closed. I should also mention that every time the TV resets my laptop monitor does as well, exactly as if you had just changed the resolution (flicker black and then back) except everything remains the same.

Permissions - make sure your user account has admin privileges .

You might want to have a look at : https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/connect-pc-to-lcd-tv-t310729.html

You need to setup the output to suit the lcd screen supported mode , using the current connection method .

S-video may be a better option .

Yes, my account has admin privileges. When the the TV was working I got the permissions message on every third attempt to change the settings, with the other two working fine. The message only listed it as a possibility, I know it isn't the cause.

I don't understand what you mean about setting up the output. If you mean the resolution and refresh rate, when the screen is flickering I am unable to change any settings, they don't "take", the screen just resets again and the settings are back to how they were. When the screen isn't flickering I can change the settings, and the TV changes, and it displays them fine. If you mean some other setup then could you elaborate?

I have tried S-video, and it works fine, except that the resolution is very low, and that is very noticeable on a 19" HDTV.

The native resolution for this TV is 1336 x 800 pixels, however, that may not be a supported input resolution. The user manual should list the recommended and/or supported input resolutions.

Why wouldn't it support its native resolution? It doesn't matter though, because it isn't an option on my computer. The manual says to set it to 1336x768 @ 60hz, however on the TV itself in the menu it says "Best Resolution: 1440x900x60hz". However, neither of these are options on my computer, the options go:
1280x(768, 800, 960, 1024) , 1360x768, 1600x1200.

However, I think that this is all of little to no relevance, because when the TV is resetting I cannot change the settings anyway. It comes up with the resolution in the top left when you change it or it resets, and I can tell you for a fact that the TV definitely displays 1280x768 and 1360x768 and many, many more, because I have seen them appear on the screen. This isn't a case of me setting it to some resolution that the TV doesn't support and having no picture, the real problem is (or at least the symptoms are the same as) I connect the TV, and the computer installs the drivers or whatever, then it uninstalls it straight away, then it detects it and installs it again, and so on.

Thanks
Andrew

[aceizace]

I've just switched over to XP (I am dual booting), and the TV works fine. So it's something to do with Vista or the driver, however I've tried 4 different NVIDIA drivers now and they are all showing the same problem. Any ideas?

The thing that is confusing me is that I've just tried another monitor and it is working fine in Vista. So it's not as simple as "it's Vista's fault", it's something to do with this TV as well.

Andrew

[bwcbwc]

I have the same issue with a Westinghouse 1080p LCD panel and a Toshiba Satellite A105 running Vista (Basic). The TV supports 1024x768, 1280x720 and 1920x1080 modes in VGA, though only at 60 Hz. I've been trying to run it in the 720p mode to match the resolution of the laptop screen, so it isn't a problem with an invalid resolution.

As far as I can tell it's a weird interaction between the ATI video driver and Windows PnP, which recognizes the monitor as a Generic PnP monitor. Since you mention that you have an nVidia video driver, it's pretty unlikely to be the display driver for either of us. Another thing I've noticed is that the monitor-switching key combo on the laptop keyboard (Fn-F5) doesn't seem to work.

I haven't been able to solve it yet, either. My next step is going to be to try to disable or override the PnP monitor detection, but I'm not really sure how to do that. My suspicion is that these TVs are doing something on the VGA line that causes the PnP to think the monitor has been swapped and it goes through the whole auto-detection cycle.