[MisterMe2]

repost from Samsung 600 series owners's thread


I have a Samsung LN52A650, Dell Inspiron 518 and VisionTek Radeon 3450 card with a built-in HDMI port. When connected to the TV (tried HDMI2 and HDMI3 on the TV), the video card seems like it's not detecting the TV (even in forced TV detection mode). I verified that the cable is OK and tried 2 known good HDMI cables.


When I connect the TV to the video card using a VGA cable instead it works just fine.


I fiddled with settings and searched various forums and couldn't get it to work with HDMI. I have downloaded the latest drivers as well (using 64 bit Vista BTW) - and my TV firmware appears to be up-to-date.


I've tried rebooting the PC and shutting the TV on/off


Some odd things are happening though:

- TV always displays 'no signal'

- Computer monitor has native resolution of 1680x1050, but when I connect the TV by HDMI, the video card switches the max resolution to 1680x1200 (and 1680x1050 is no longer available)

- in 'Basic' mode in the Catalyst control center, it is telling me I can connect to either a monitor or TV (i.e. seems to detect the TV in this mode whereas it doesn't in advanced), but when I select TV, it does not connect


Any ideas? Thank you for any assistance.

 

[MisterMe2]

Update. After a suggestion from a moderator at digitalhome.ca


I connected it solely to the TV, rebooted and voila! It worked - only it started up in 1024x768 resolution. I used the Catalyst control center to force it to 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz and this worked to change the resolution.


Unfortunately, audio did not work (home videos, not commercial content)

Also (at least the way I had it configured), the display looked quite poor. Text was not crisp and photos/videos not sharp. When I had the TV connected via VGA I'm quite sure the display was significantly better (it impressed me yesterday when I tested it).


So I guess that means that VisionTek didn't implement ATI's method to drive audio over HDMI.


I wonder if there's a way to improve the image with HDMI, or whether I should just use VGA (can I drive a VGA cable signal 15 feet? That's the length I need)

 

[MisterMe2]

Update2:


Well, I got a tip from another user.


With these Samsung TVs, there is another step that has to be done:


The TV needs to be connected via HDMI2, and then you have to use the TV menu to rename HDMI2 to PC (this is in the manual, but it's under 'renaming inputs' rather than the connecting to PC section so I missed it).


Once you rename it to PC, then the display is optimized in some way and it looks much better!