So I just got a new laptop (Win7 OS). Part of the reason for me getting a laptop is so I could plug it in to my flatscreen TV and stream movies on it.
The problem is, every time I plug the VGA cord in, the screen scrunches in from the sides on both my laptop scrren and my TV. The end result leaving me with two black voids on the left and right sides of my screen.
Anybody know a fix for this?
Just a guess, but could you have the resolution set too low on your laptop? You said “VGA cable,” and that’s 640 x 480. If you have a flat screen TV, I’m guessing it’s an HDTV and the lower of the two HDTV resolutions is 1280 x 720. Check the screen resolution of your laptop and see if you can increase it to something that looks better on the TV. (Not on a Win 7 computer at the moment or I’d tell you where to look. On XP you right-click on some idle real estate on the desktop and select “properties.”
Not exactly sure what TV you have, but Shakes is correct. The resolution that is being shown is incorrect. When you plug the VGA cable in to both the laptop and the TV, there is some communication that takes place. Basically the TV tells the laptop “I can display these resolutions and this one is my preferred one.” The laptop then automatically sets the output resolution to the preferred one.
The reason this changes your laptop’s display resolution is that by default, Windows 7 sets the TV display to mirror that of the laptop’s display, so both the laptop display and the TV display the same resolution, most likely 1024 x 768.
The easiest way to fix this is to right click on the desktop, select ‘Screen Resolution’. You should see 2 displays shown in the window. Select the second one, then select ‘Extend my desktop’ in the third box down. This will separate the displays so that you can show 2 different things on each display.
When you select apply, the resolution for your laptop screen should go back to the correct resolution, most likely 1280 x 800. Then you can select what resolution to display on the TV. I would suggest choosing something like 1920 x 1080, if that option is available.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for your help guys. That did it.