Use of Plasma monitor with my Compaq laptop

[ralft]

I have been trying to connect my Compaq Presario R3000 laptop to my
new Sylvania Plasma monitor as the secondary monitor. Until recently,
only my desktop image, screen saver and DVD player images show up,
regardless of the settings that I tried in ControlPanel/Display/
Settings. Now, when I select the second choice as described below AND
check the box called "Extend My Windows Desktop onto this monitor",
more things show up on my Plasma monitor. BUT, they do not include
the mouse cursor and they don't include lost of other things such as
photos. I have it connected using a S video cable. The Sylvania has S
video, yellow RCA jacks and component video jacks.
Two monitors always have shown up when I look at Display Properties/
Settings and
in the Display box, I have selected 1. (Multiple Monitors) on NVIDIA
GeForce 4 420 Go 32M. The #2 choice is Default Monitor on NVIDIA
GeForce 4 420 Go 32M.
A suggestion from another forum was to get the NVIDIA control panel
and so I did but it
it does not include the Display, Games, Video & Television sections.
All it offers is performance and System Stability sections. I think it
was since doing that that I get more things to show on the plasma as I
described in the first paragraph.
So, what do I need the NVIDIA control panel which provides the
DualView option?? I did post this question on the NVIDIA forums
without any response.
OR, how can I get my secondary monitor working correctly?

 

[RalfG]

It's been a long time since I set up an Nvidia card but it seems to me that
the settings you are looking for should pretty much all show up when you
click the Advanced button on Display Settings. If they don't it is possible
you do not have the full Nvidia driver set installed on the computer.
Updating with the latest driver
from Nvidia should fix that.

As far as using the mouse on the TV screen when it is set up as an extended
display, it will only travel onto the 2nd screen in the same orientation as
the display icons appear in Display Settings -- ie. if Display 2 is shown to
the right of Display 1 in Settings, the mouse can only move off of Display
1 on the right hand side. You can drag these display icons to reposition
them within the box in order to change the mouse orientation to match the
actual physical orientation of the computer and TV.

Most programs will initially open on the computer monitor (Display 1) by
default. When reduced the program from full screen to a window you can drag
the program window over onto the secondary monitor and if you don't drag it
back again before closing the program most will subsequently continue to
open on the secondary monitor. Some programs however will always open on the
primary display. I've even run into a couple that always open on the
Secondary display, which is even more of a nuisance. If you need those
programs to show on the TV you could try switching the display mode from
Extended mode to Clone mode. In Clone mode everything that shows on the
Primary display is duplicated on the Secondary.

 

[ralft]

Thanks for this suggestion but, I finally got my new monitor working
just as I have been wanting by using a simple pair of buttons. All I
needed to do was to press the Fn button and the F4 keys
simultaneously. As I understand it , this is a common feature of
laptops. I have to give credit to the Best Buy "Geek Squad" for the
tip, and there was not even a charge.