HDMI not recognized on Samsung TV

Question

I know it's not exactly what SU is about, but I didn't know where else to turn at this point. I'm trying to hook up a Samsung LA32S81B television to my/a computer using HDMI. This is a moderately old TV, 2007 era, non-smart.

Originally, I tried to hook it up to my laptop, to no avail. I'll save you the long story of all the bug hunting I did, but eventually I came to the discovery that it's not the computer(s) at fault, nor the cable: the TV itself is not recognizing any HDMI from either my laptop or my desktop. My laptop, running win10, and later Win8.1 (after reading in some places win10 and HDMI have known to not play nice) was unable to get a link to the TV, and my desktop is also not able to output to it, or even recognize a screen is connected. Oddly enough, if I hook up, say, a cable box, to the same HDMI ports on the TV, using the same cable, I do get output, and if I for instance use the same HDMI cable and plug it into one of my computer monitors, the computer picks it up fine. It's literally only PC to TV that will NOT work. I've tried onboard graphics, I've tried my GTX970, I've tried old drivers, new drivers, I've factory resetted the TV, it won't budge. Nothing is working. I've tried literally everything I can think of. The only thing I can imagine is happening is that maybe the PCs are all outputting some format the TV won't recognize (which already seems unlikely, especially through HDMI), but then at least I would still imagine my computer to at least notice a screen is connected.

Is there anyone who has any idea what the hell is going on?

further info: desktop is Win10 and is also running two other monitors off of the GTX970, both are connected through DVI. Laptop had Intel onboard graphics,

Answer 1

I got so sick of this I just bought a new TV

Answer 2

In looking at the specs for that TV, it does not support 1080p. Likely, your PC is outputting a 1080p signal and the TV can't sync to it.

Try these things:

• Lower your display resolution to 1280x720 (that's the HDTV 720p spec).
• On the TV, make sure the HDMI input says PC as the source type (Samsungs in particular have undocumented behavior where they overscan/underscan an image depending on what the input type is set to).
• Most laptops have an Fn+ key combination to enable/disable/mirror an external display. Fiddle with that to see if it makes a difference.
• In Windows, make sure it understands that you have two screens, and that the "Extend my desktop onto this monitor" checkbox is selected for the TV.

Hope it helps.