How To Connect Laptop / Computer With TV Screen

If you like to watch YouTube videos, photos and browse internet on the large TV screen, then there is an easy way to connect your laptop or computer with TV set. As watching your PC stuff on big screen is really amazing & TV is perfect for that.

Well, there are many ways to connect your PC to a TV depending on what ports are available on the computer and your Television. Here i show most common steps for connecting computer with TV.

Also See: Limitations of Connecting Tv Screen to Computer CPU

How to Connect Laptop or Computer with TV – Step by Step

Step 1

Most of the computers have an ‘S-Video’ port that can be connected to S-Video input of the Television screen using a very cheap ‘S-Video cable’ (this cable is round with the 4 or 7 pins). If you are having an old monitor, you can use a 15-pin VGA cable to connect your computer with TV screen and it will offer the better picture quality than ‘S-Video’ cable.

The latest HD TVs and computers / laptops have DVI ports so a DVI Male to Male Cable or DVI to HDMI Adapter Cable can be used to hook up the computer display and TV. DVI to HDMI cable can be used when the  HD TV does not have an DVI port, but do have an HDMI port.

Connect the Audio RCA Cable for Sound

Step 2

Now when you have connected your computer with TV using a physical cable, then further you need another cable for transmitting the sound (audio) as all the above cables help in transmitting the video only but not the audio.

You need a 3.5 mm Mini-Plug to RCA Cable Stereo to connect the audio (sound) line-out from a PC / notebook to your TV. The red cable-connector goes in to the red socket of your Television, black connector in to the black socket and while the black connector goes in to the 3.5 mm headphone jack of the computer.

Step 3

Then open the ‘Display Settings’ on your Windows computer & activate the output to TV screen. You can either mirror the content of computer or laptop on the TV or extend the display just like a dual-monitor screen.

If you use Windows 7, then press keyboard shortcut ‘Windows + P’ to quickly access display setting or search for the ‘Connect to External Display’ in Windows Run bar.

Step 4

Now pick up remote of your TV and switch to the ‘External Inputs’ from the menu. You will then need to change the default ‘Video 1’ to the different selection which may be HDMI 1 or Video 2 depending on the connection you have ,made.

Important: Make sure that you have connected the physical cable to your TV set before turning on your computer as sometimes it may go fail to recognize the external display. Users may also need to change screen resolution of the Television using ‘Display settings’ from the Control Panel else the image may sometimes appear distorted. I hope you all are able to connect your computer with TV screen with above steps.