I was wondering if anyone could help me out.

I just hooked my pc up to my TV and i cant get the right resolution.
Theres about 4 inch of black at each side.

It's a 40 inch tv if you need any more info just ask.

Thanks for any help.

We need some information on the TV... There are many 40" screens with different native resolutions.

You may have to change the aspect ratio of the TV itself after setting the PC to the correct resolution. Look around for an option in the TV's menu along the lines of "Full" or "1:1 Pixel Mapping."

Looked though the menu's but didnt see anything, so i pressed all the buttons on the remote and found a
little pop up menu.

Normal which was with the black lines.
Wide which filled it up looks a little streched but not too bad.
Pc media window which pushed the screen left and put all the black to the right.

I found a ok resolution for now, i asked my cousin who just came round and he said i may need a
hdmi to dvi cable if i want it to look better.

Do you have an ATI video card?

http://techhelpbot.com/content/how-change-options-ati-radeons-overscan-or-underscan

If it's not connected with HDMI then it's not going to be the best it can be.

When I hook my laptop up to my TV (and use it as an extension) it looks like there is a lot of black space around my background where its really just my background being small. Normal windows pop up the size of my entire screen.

DVI/HDMI are the same quality.

I know that, I was stating that if he hadn't already connected it with the way he was describing DVI to HDMI he wasn't getting the best quality...

Huh? Computers have HDMI-out ports as well as DVI-out ports. Same quality either way.

If your graphic card has a "zoom" type setting (ATI does this, maybe it's the scaling), you use that to fill the TV screen. It's more effective than the various aspect ratio settings TV's often have. Well, it was on our TV anyway.

How are you confused?

I was responding directly to the OP who stated that his cousin told him he may get a better resolution using DVI to HDMI. I was agreeing with that by stating that if you're not connecting with DVI to HDMI or just a straight up HDMI that I use in my case you're not going to be able to get the highest resolution. My guess is then that the OP is connecting using VGA which is a lesser quality...

I was just guessing that his cousin is confused and OP is using HDMI connection. VGA does do HD resolutions, it's just an anolog format so prone to interference.

Either way, whether he's using VGA or HDMI that's not his problem. It's his video card's overscan/underscan settings that need to be adjusted.

IIRC VGA doesn't support 1920x1080.

EDIT: In some cases it may I guess. It's all whether or not the video card supports the resolution.

VGA cables can transmit 1080p signals, but the TV may have trouble displaying it. (I think it has to do with the conversion from an anolog to digital signal)

I think im useing a VGA cable, but a cable is a cable to me :tongue:
Going to have alook at those hdmi to dvi cables.

Before you go and buy that, did you try increasing your overscan?

I dont even know what that is :confused:

I never had any issues running 1080p signal via VGA to a 40 inch Samsung HDTV through video out from a desktop graphics card.

Just understand that modifying the resolution for a good number of TV's won't be as plausible by this method, and if you plan on playing certain games on it that only run full screen, it must conform to that resolution or the TV will kill the signal. Generally TV's aren't as flexible as PC monitors.

The main reason I ran VGA to my HDTV was for movies and showing family/friends stuff when they came over. Not games.

I posted a link earlier. I don't even know if VGA can overscan though, so if you have black bars then you're probably running at a lower resolution than the TV.

A DVI-HDMI adapter would make things easier, but keep in mind if you buy an HDMI cable from a retail store you will get ripped off pretty badly.


Yeah I generally don't like using HDTVs to output my PC, because some games I play automatically change the resolution.