Looking for advice regarding PC gaming

South_Coast_Gamer · 30 Dec 2018 at 23:22

Hello! This is my first post so I hope I've posted this in the right place!

I purchased a PC from you a few years ago now (it's still quite powerful) and I wish to play iracing on it. I own a racing wheel and pedal set and I know they link up to my PC just fine. I am trying to get my PC to link up to my 4K TV. I have tried to use a HDMI cable and link it that way, however, my TV understands there's a HDMI connected (and even understands it's linked to a PC) but just displays a blank screen. Now, admiteddly, when I have my PC connected to my monitor it's done via the VGI port. Would I need to buy a VGI to HDMI converter to get this to work?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and has a great new year!

P.S If you need anymore information on this issue, I'd be happy to provide it

Dirk Diggler · 30 Dec 2018 at 23:46

Sounds like you've plugged the HDMI cable into the motherboard HDMI slot instead of the HDMI slot on the graphics card.

South_Coast_Gamer · 31 Dec 2018 at 00:32

String said:
Sounds like you've plugged the HDMI cable into the motherboard HDMI slot instead of the HDMI slot on the graphics card.

Perhaps! Do you know how I'd go about fixing that? There are two HDMI slots on the back of my PC and tried them both, but to no avail. Thank you for your response.

Dirk Diggler · 31 Dec 2018 at 06:28

Could you post a photo of the back of the PC?

pestt · 31 Dec 2018 at 07:56

Tried duplicating the display in Windows settings?

Matteysan · 31 Dec 2018 at 11:51

Sounds possible that you still have the VGA linked to a monitor?

If so you need to go to display settings & then set up multiple displays.

MegaPinches · 31 Dec 2018 at 12:28

pestt said:
Tried duplicating the display in Windows settings?

Yes try this

I used to always get a blank display when switching over to use pc on TV as it would always assume monitor was display 1 regardless of it being unplugged and being setup as single display the 2nd screen (i.e the TV) would be blank as its not activated. Multi or duplicate will fix it.

Press "Win key + P" while using your monitor, select duplicate then try the cable in the TV, you might need to adjust overscan as well if top and sides are cut off.

South_Coast_Gamer · 1 Jan 2019 at 00:14

String said:
Could you post a photo of the back of the PC?

I've taken pictures but I don't understand how to post them on this reply? I've tried images (obviously) but they're not saved to a website, they're saved to my hard drive.

pestt said:
Tried duplicating the display in Windows settings?

I have just tried doing this but when I open up the settings on my PC (whilst still connected to the monitor) it won't let me do it dual for some reason?

Matteysan said:
Sounds possible that you still have the VGA linked to a monitor?

If so you need to go to display settings & then set up multiple displays.

See above. I'm very much a newbie to the more middling aspects of PC hardware and software management!

MegaPinches said:
Yes try this

I used to always get a blank display when switching over to use pc on TV as it would always assume monitor was display 1 regardless of it being unplugged and being setup as single display the 2nd screen (i.e the TV) would be blank as its not activated. Multi or duplicate will fix it.

Press "Win key + P" while using your monitor, select duplicate then try the cable in the TV, you might need to adjust overscan as well if top and sides are cut off.

I've just tried doing this (as per my reply to the second poster) but whenever I tell me PC to go "duplicate" it just seems to revert back to the "PC display" setting. Bear in mind of course I don't have both the PC monitor and TV hooked up at the same time. Is this something I need to do? Told you... N00b here!

koolpc · 1 Jan 2019 at 00:44

Are you running the cable from you graphics card or from the motherboard?

If graphics card, does it have an HDMI port?

South_Coast_Gamer · 1 Jan 2019 at 01:11

koolpc said:
Are you running the cable from you graphics card or from the motherboard?

If graphics card, does it have an HDMI port?

I... Don't know? I have pictures saved to my hard drive of where it's plugged in but I don't know how to upload them on here.

Angilion · 1 Jan 2019 at 02:11

South_Coast_Gamer said:
I... Don't know? I have pictures saved to my hard drive of where it's plugged in but I don't know how to upload them on here.

You can't do it directly. You have to upload them to an image hosting site (imgur is widely used) and insert links to them in your post here (IIRC when you look at a pic in your imgur account it will offer you the bbcode text for it so it's just a cut and paste job).

South_Coast_Gamer · 1 Jan 2019 at 10:55

Angilion said:
You can't do it directly. You have to upload them to an image hosting site (imgur is widely used) and insert links to them in your post here (IIRC when you look at a pic in your imgur account it will offer you the bbcode text for it so it's just a cut and paste job).

Here are the pictures as requested!

https://imgur.com/pMTzTt4

https://imgur.com/Lt2pIU3

https://imgur.com/0OqFMcl

Dirk Diggler · 1 Jan 2019 at 16:13

South_Coast_Gamer said:
Here are the pictures as requested!

You've only got one monitor plugged into your graphics card.

Nemiyen · 1 Jan 2019 at 16:44

If you've got 2 HDMI ports on your pc then you should need to use the one closest to the bottom as that should be on your graphics card, which will most likely be better than the one built on to your motherboard.

If you got your pc from here then they may have disabled the internal GPU if you bought it with a better GPU at the time so the HDMI port near to your usb usb slots and where the green and blue old ps/2 won't work.

You will probably need to do what others have said and have your monitor and the TV plugged in at the same time and then enable dual screens or mirrored screen.

If that isn't possible I would shut the pc down and then boot it up with the hdmi plugged in only (to the bottom most slot on your graphics card) so your pc only sees the hdmi output and should use it. I wouldn't go from the dvi-vga adapter and then plug the hdmi cable in as I've seen this not work when going from analogue to digital connections.

Make sure you're shutting the pc down as well and not hibernating and then just use the hdmi with your TV on the right hdmi channel and it should just work on the TV fine .

South_Coast_Gamer · 1 Jan 2019 at 17:38

Hi folks. I've managed to fix the problem now using the method suggested by Nemiyen!

Thank you for all of the support!