Problems with graphic cards S-Video output

[Marzman]

Hi,

I have a nVIDIA 128MB GeForce MX 4000 AGP graphics card but the video out seems to have a bit of a problem.

Whilst using it, all I get is a black and white image in DOS and at the windows boot-up screen and then nothing when the OS loads.

The S-Video (Tv out) has a little connector thing which you plug in and then connect a AV (I believe) cable to hook it up to your Tv/Video. I'm only using a standard cable so could this be the problem?

I would appreciate any ideas as the manual isn't any help and I asked an experienced friend and he seemed as confused as me.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Not sure but try these places to look for errors:
In Device Manager for any vid problems
In Display Settings if the S-vid out is handled like a dual monitor situation.

[Marzman]

Theres no device problems and in display settings they are two monitors. One my TFT screen and the other a default monitor: which is set up for 16 colours and 640x480 res. Should I play around with this? Still no joy

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Hmmm,
So my idea was right. You should see a shadow of 2 monitors in Display Settings, yes? At this point seeings though noone else has joined in so far, something to try.

Keep your tft hooked up and the tv. Do you have a driver disk for the video card? As both are attached, go to 'update drivers' either in DM or display settings? Lead the install to the drivers on the cd and hopefully that fixes it. But depending on your os, sometimes that is a lesson in frustration in itself.

I have one with a tv out but I haven't tried to hook it up yet. A laptop with dual monitor drivers as well but I've never hooked any external to it either,,,, yet. ;)

It's been a few years since I've used 'dueling monitors' and had a thread here titled that. My problems boiled down simply to a driver issue.

[Marzman]

Tried the 'reload' (of the graphic card drivers). Still no joy. I've played around with the settings, changing the bit/res settings on the second monitor (Tv), but I still just get a grey screen. Should I try a different Tv? A spare can be easily swiped from the other room:p

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Open an app, any app, data file, a Word doc, a movie even. If it opens on the laptop screen, grab the top bar with your cursor and hold the left mouse down and drag the app to the direction of the second monitor. It should pass right through from one to the other. Drag and drop.

[Marzman]

Wow, that works. It's a little strange, dragging the window to the left and then it appearing on the Tv tothe right, but it's still good. Now, if only it was in colour! Have you got any other handy tips there? I've changed the settings, played around with both my flat screen monitor and Default (Tv) monitor brightness/contrast controls but still no joy:(

[Paleo Pete]

Back into Display Properties, check to see what hardware is listed for the TV. If it's the Default Monitor you mentioned earlier, that's probably the culprit. See if you can find your TV make and model listed if you try to change or update driver for that monitor (I don't know what OS you're using or what will be listed on the property sheets).

If your TV is not listed, try looking for an INF file on the internet. It might work just on a generic TV setting, but the system needs to know that's a TV and not a monitor. Also check the Advanced settings and see if it might be set to grayscale or black and white somewhere in that section.

In the settings page you can also reset which monitor is primary, and if you grab the monitor icon on the left you can drag and drop it to the right, or switch the positions of TV and monitor so the image onscreen drags the same direction as your mouse moves. Dual monitor is nice, but dragging a window one direction and seeing it move the other would annoy me to no end. You can also set it so they both show the same image, a nice option for some circumstances.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

16 colors and 640x480 resolution just screams to me that the display drivers are not installed.

When I set up my laptop I had trouble getting the drivers to install and I'll walk you through the story to see if the same is happening to you.

Upon loading Windows 98, it would install some generic drivers from the cab files and only let me have 16 colors. Going in Device Manager and removing the drivers, I would be pro0mpted to reboot. But everytime I did, Windows would discover that it needed device drivers but I could not install the drivers on the disk because Windows couldn't 'see' them due to their being '.exe's. So the generic drivers would get loaded again repeatedly.

Malcore (Thanks again, HW junkie,,) came along and posted a suggestion in my thread in the NoteBooks forum here. This is what fixed it:

Go to Device Manager and remove the display drivers. Do not allow Windows to reboot. Go to the driver file if in .exe form and click on it. The rest should be self explanatory. If they are not an .exe, go to Display Properties and click update drivers. Lead the Wizard to the drivers and hopefully they will install then. Good luck.

[Marzman]

Thanks fuss tray, I did have a driver problem where windows was attached to a generic type but I sorted that (before I started this thread) . Paleo, I did what you said and changed the default monitor to a generic Tv but it didn't do the trick. I did notice 'color' management was empty so would loading a ICC profile do the trick? If so, which one (I can list all the ones available to win98 se). Everything else is set up for colour so the only other thing I can think of is the brand of the Tvi'm trying to use. It's an Osume (cheap as they come but 60Hz and reliable), so could this be why I'm only getting the B & W image. Thanks guys for your help, and just so youknow most of what you've mentioned (such as switching the monitors round so drag and drop works the correct way) isn't in the manual. *shakes fist @ Nvidia*:)