Connecting notebook to TV using S-video. Help needed.

I am using an adapter to connect the 7-pin output of my notebook to S-video input of my Standard TV, and I am getting nothing but some white lines on the TV screen. I am attaching the pics below.
I tried playing around with nvidia control panel (pic below), diaply properties, and even changed my display drivers from laptopvideo2go to new ones from HP download site (version 7.15.11.7432), but no change. Please help me.

 

Have you tried low down Screen Resolution to 800 x 600 or lower and 16 bit color quality? Standard TV won't support high resolution, some time you may have to set the resolution down to 640 x 480.

 

After taking a look at your pictures are you sure about your statement:

"I am using an adapter to connect the 7-pin output of my notebook to S-video input of my Standard TV" or did you mean:

I am using an adapter to connect the 7-pin output of my notebook to the composite input of my Standard TV?

If the second statement is true, do you by chance have a friend who has a TV with an s-video input you could hook up your notebook to with a true s-video cable and see if it works? I ask this because it may be the s-video to composite adapter that is giving you a problem.

 

Well, I have TV that accepts composite and S-video inputs, and am using an adapter that has both kind of outputs - Yellow composite and s-video. I tried connecting using RCA yellow composite cable first, and I got nothing on my screen at all - no noise, no lines, nothing. Then I connected using S-video cable and I got the lines that I have posted picture of. So with S-video I am at least getting something. But yes, adapter could be a problem, and I need to probably get hold of another adapter to double check.

Also, I tried to change the resolution from extreme right to extreme left on the slider bar, but nothing changed.
Hope it all works out in the end.

 

It seems odd that you would not get any video at all with the composite cable output but not all S-video outputs like being adapted to composite, don't know about HP. I would get the cheapest true S-video to S-video cable I could find an try it, no adapter. If you have any cables from a camcorder, TV cable box, audio/video receiver, game console, etc. you may already have a S-video cable they usually all come with at least one.

 

I have the Svideo cable, but its got 4-pins on both end. I probably need one that has 7-pin on one ends and 4-pin on the other, am I right?? Otherwise I am stuck with the use of adapter in-between.

 

You should be able to use the cable with 4-pins on both ends, it should fit into the 7-pin connector on the HP. I will refer you to this article: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/svideo2cvideo.html.

I am not at home at the present time, not until Thursday, but if you don't get the cable / notebook working by that time I will connect my laptop to my TV with various cables and let you know the results.

It is/was that Dell computers used to have a slightly different pin-out on their 7-pin cables which required a different type of adapter. That is why I dislike adapters, because 7-pin connectors do not always follow a defined standard like 4-pin connectors/cables.

This is an excerpt from the above article:

What if my PC graphics card has a 7-pin S-video connector instead of 4-pin ?

"The four pin S-video connector as shown above is the standard connector for carrying S-video. Those seven pin connectors seen on some PC graphics cards are non-standard connectors for carrying S-video. The use of the pins on those seven pin connectors is not standardized and can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. (For some strange reasons some manufacturers in PC industry just keep constanly breaking the industry standars and create lots of confuzion to users when doing so).
Generally the four pins on those 7-pin connectors on the same places as the standard four pin S-video connector have practcly always the same fuctionality as those pins in S-video connector. The other three pins can have then some extra signals which are not part of S-video (usually some pins of those carry composite video and some control signals, but the use of those three extra pins vary quite much). So if you encounter 7 pin connector for S-video, then forget the three center pins... just use the four on the standard positions."

 

you have to set your resolution down to 640x480 as that is the max svideo supports. other wise you get a crap picture like that. at 640x480 you wont be able to read much of anything anyways, waste of time if you ask me.

 

Prabhg,
What Ryencool says is correct. Max resolution for S-video is 640x480. Make sure the resolution sent to your TV display is no greater. S-video is not going to be good for reading text, only for video.

 

Thanks Guys, esp deeastman. My 4pin s-video cable fitted perfectly in the 7-pin slot and I got the video on tv screen. Probably the adapter I was using has some issue with it, so I will replace it. All worked great, pressed Fn+F4, and video came up on TV, but laptop display went dark, pressed it again, it came back up but in a very low resolution. I am assuming it was probably cloning the screen and therefore matched the resolution up with the TV's resolution. But under display properties, tv resolution slider can go upto 1024x768, and it was working normal even at that resolution, so I didn't understand the part when you said it can handle 640x480 max.
Also, I tried to hook my friend's laptop with the tv (he got dv9700) and there came a popup saying an external monitor was detected and asked me wether I want to clone it or set dual view. But I didnt get any such popup. I am using latest drivers from HP website.

 

The 640x480 may be max. for standard non-HD TV's. HD TV's have so many checks built in to analyze the signal at the inputs I don't know ultimately what signal the TV adjusts to, to display. I know my older Sony only worked at that resolution on a non-HD TV., and the operation manual indicated such. Maybe I will get ambitious and try this for myself.

I am glad you are finally getting it to work, now you can experiment. I don't know about your popup's but apparently you are to a point you can live with the results you are getting. I have given up on trying to get everything working perfectly when it comes to computers. Sometimes good enough is good enough if you are 95% of the way there.

P.S. Your adapter may not be defective, just not compatable with the HP.

 

Very well said and wise advice to keep. Thanks a lot.