Turn on TV-Out on Vista Home Premium?

Hey folks,

I'm running Vista Home Premium on a new Dell Inspiron 640m (got it pre-installed). Only problem i'm having is trying to get TV-Out working.

The laptop has a 7pin svideo out port. I have a 7-pin svideo-to-composite cable. I've tried plugging it in with the laptop off and booting up, i've tried mobility centre's 'connect external display' button, i've tried everything i can think of, and I can't find any way to make the laptop recognise or output to my standard def CRT tv.

Any ideas?

 

There will be a quick key combination on your keyboard, (Fn + ....)

On my Inspiron its Fn + F8. They might have changed the combination on the newer laptops.

Plug everything in, put your TV on the correct AV channel, and keep pressing the quickey to cycle through the external video outputs until the image appears on the TV. CRT TV resolution is very low, and the quickey function should automatically set Contrast/Resolution/Brightness.

Just to note, CRT TVs are only clear enough for games on low settings and films. They're not good enough to use as a primary monitor.

 

Yup, the keyboard has the short cut on fn+f8, but when pressed it does absolutely nothing, unfortunately.

 

Right click on desktop, go to properties, settings, and enable your TV from there by clikcing the secondary monitor and then "Clone my Windows Desktop to this monitor".

 

Tried that too, and get nothing once again.

I did think maybe it was the tv, but on the apple powerbook this dell replaced it worked perfectly.