DVI/HDMI Cable Connection

I'm playing with hooking up my PC to my Hitachi 1080i HDTV. Yesterday
I got it to work, but I have a question on how the DVI connector
functions. It appears that the DVI connection overrides the VGA
connector such that I can't view my PC when the connection to the TV
is made. This doesn't seem correct. I'm wondering if I have a
setting wrong or it's something specific to the graphic card, or is
that just the way it works. I would like to be able to leave it
connected and work on my PC just like before. I have an ATI X300SE
PCI Express graphics card.

wrote:
I'm playing with hooking up my PC to my Hitachi 1080i HDTV. Yesterday
I got it to work, but I have a question on how the DVI connector
functions. It appears that the DVI connection overrides the VGA
connector such that I can't view my PC when the connection to the TV
is made. This doesn't seem correct. I'm wondering if I have a
setting wrong or it's something specific to the graphic card, or is
that just the way it works. I would like to be able to leave it
connected and work on my PC just like before. I have an ATI X300SE
PCI Express graphics card.

give us more detail about your operating system and your monitor and the
whole setup. generally, you should be able to have two monitors setup
without a problem though but it needs to be recognized and configured by
the operating system.

wrote in message


I'm playing with hooking up my PC to my Hitachi 1080i
HDTV. Yesterday I got it to work, but I have a question
on how the DVI connector functions.

The DVI connectors on a typical PC video card are dual-purpose, both analog
and digital.

It appears that the
DVI connection overrides the VGA connector such that I
can't view my PC when the connection to the TV is made.

Depends on the video card, and may require some work on your part to get it
to work if it can work.

Does your video card have both a DVI (white, many pins) and a VGA (blue, 15
pin locations, some might be missing) recepticle? If so, then you can
probably get both to work.

This doesn't seem correct. I'm wondering if I have a
setting wrong or it's something specific to the graphic
card, or is that just the way it works. I would like to
be able to leave it connected and work on my PC just
like before. I have an ATI X300SE PCI Express graphics
card.

Unfortunately ATI X300SE is not a specific graphics card, but a chipset that
appears on a number of different graphics cards. I can find examples that
have either one or two jacks on them.

Here's one with 2 jacks:

http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-car...-31297248.html


Here's an outline of how to get it to get a picture on two displays:

(1) Hook a display to one of the two jacks. Boot the machine from power-on.
The connection you choose should be auto-detected and work normally, no
matter which jack you choose.

(2) Hook up your displays. Boot the machine from power-on. There might be a
picture on both displays or not.

There should be a picture on at least one of the displays. From this display
either use the control panel display properties applet, or a program
provided by the video card chipset driver installation, to enable the second
display.

The best multiple-driver configuration programs will tell you what your
inventory of attached displays is, and allow you to configure them either as
screens with the same logical contents, or screens that are tiles in a
larger virtual display.

wrote in message
...
I'm playing with hooking up my PC to my Hitachi 1080i HDTV. Yesterday
I got it to work, but I have a question on how the DVI connector
functions. It appears that the DVI connection overrides the VGA
connector such that I can't view my PC when the connection to the TV
is made. This doesn't seem correct. I'm wondering if I have a
setting wrong or it's something specific to the graphic card, or is
that just the way it works. I would like to be able to leave it
connected and work on my PC just like before. I have an ATI X300SE
PCI Express graphics card.




windows should allow you to run a dual monitor setup with each running
independently.- unless your graphics card is crap.



--
Gareth.

That fly, is your magic wand.....