HDTV to PC with Vista Ultimate

[Guest]

I have an LCD TV with a DVI-D input that I want to use with my new Vista PC.
(TV is Sharp Aquos LC-37D7U, video adapter is MSI NX7600GT).

When I boot the computer, I see the early boot messages in 640x480, then I
see the Windows Loading message. After that I hear the sound that is played
when it is time to log on, but no image shows on the TV. Yes, the TV is set
to PC (DVI) input.

If I connect my Dell monitor, log on, set resolution by hand to 1280x720,
then change the cable to connect the TV, the TV displays correctly. But if
the computer sleeps, the screen is blank when it wakes up.

The graphics adapter also supports HDMI, but when I connect with an HDMI
cable and set to HDMI input, I get no picture at all.

I want the TV to display in the correct mode on booting or wakeup without
having to have a second monitor and the cable-switching routine.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

[GBK]

get the latest beta drivers from Nvidia.com 101.41 it has a few fixes but
overall are not "ready" for Vista usage yet.. missing half the features...
obviously nvidia did nothing during the beta of vista over the last 2 years.

 

[JW]

You have to make sure in the NVIDIA control center or driver software that
your LCD is recognized as an HDTV and that you are only using a resolution
over HDMI that it will accept over HDMI. Certainly 720p (1280x720)@60Hz is
one of the valid resolutions. Obviously 480i is another since that is what
is used by default by the BIOS before Windows gets control and uses the one
you have selected with you graphics card driver.

 

[Guest]

You have to make sure in the NVIDIA control center or driver software that
your LCD is recognized as an HDTV and that you are only using a resolution
over HDMI that it will accept over HDMI.

Unfortunately the only NVIDIA drivers for Vista are those that come with
Vista, and they do not include the Control Center as far as I can tell (not
found on personalize / screen settings / Advanced). The NVIDIA site provides
only Win2K/XP drivers.

 

[Guest]

I made it work, not exactly the way I expected.

The problem with using a VGA input is, I think, that the TV is not sending
its PnP info to Windows to initialize it properly. If I boot with the TV,
then switch the cable to my Dell display, it is in some resolution that the
Dell monitor does not recognize (and it does nearly all up to 1920x1200), or
perhaps in a disabled state, and I can't tell which.

All of this was using an ANALOG DVI cable - it has a DVI on one end (which I
connect to TV) and VGA on the other, and a VGA-DVI adapter on the NVIDIA
card's DVI slot. Electrically, it works, if I apply the hack described in my
original note, but it does not initialize right. It DOES initialize
correctly when using my laptop (VGA output, thus no adapter, and XP rather
than Vista).

What works better is to use a DIGITAL DVI cable - with DVI connectors on
both ends. These connectors are different, if you look at them carefully.
This site discusses DVI connectors:
http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_Digital_Visual_Interface_DVI_Bus.html

When using the digital DVI cable, I obviously don't need the DVI-to-VGA
adapter on the computer. It didn't work the first time I tried - until I
discovered a hidden setting in the Aquos menu tree that controls whether the
DVI input should be treated as PC-Analog or PC-Digital.

Now it boots up in the desired mode.

The next problem was that the image was too big to fit on the screen, and I
could not find any way to shrink the horizontal and vertical sizes. This
idea seems to be how it is done with analog monitors. I found an Auto Adjust
on the Aquos menu, and this made it fit perfectly.

I had also tried HDMI - because the MSI NX7600 GT Diamond Plus adapter I
bought has an HDMI socket, as does the TV. This didn't work at first, but
suddenly it was working too. I'm not sure what changed, but it might have
been that I rebooted the PC, which could have been necessary to recognize the
monitor in HDMI mode.

[Of course for both HDMI and PC inputs, it is necessary to use the Input
selector to set to the appropriate input.]

The HDMI mode was also too big for the screen. Since I was pursuing a DVI
solution, I did not experiment, but I expect that the Auto Adjust would have
corrected this as well.

Incidentally, the Sharp Aquos technical support knew less about this than I
did - the rep was reading the manual for the first time, and decided that the
mode I was trying to use - which is documented in the manual as supported -
was probably incompatible. It was a wasted 45 minutes, but at least it was a
free call.

MSI doesn't seem to have ANY support at all on their Web site, though they
do list a telephone number in Taiwan. They don't have drivers for Vista, and
the "manual" is a 6-minipage quick setup. Not even specs.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. I had been looking on the MSI site for drivers, this may help. See
also my other response, where I found alternative solutions.

 

[JW]

How about theses:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_100.65.html