How Do I Hook Up TV -and- Monitor to Computer at the Same Time?

I have a splitter cable for the monitor port (regular monitor port, not hdmi) and a monitor connection on my tv and a monitor connection on my PC.  

I can hook each up by itself to the computer with no problem and the display is great, but when I have them both connected to the splitter cable, either the TV says its an incompatible connection (if I plug in the cable to my monitor first) or my monitor's resolution is really low (if I plug in the cable to my TV first).

Because of that, I'm guessing the computer recognizes whatever device is plugged into the monitor port first (tv or monitor) and then outputs whatever resolution it recognizes to both devices.  Problem is that it will either look like crap, or not at all.  

If that's the case, how do I get the computer to use the proper resolution for whatever device I want to use at the time (I dont want to use both displays at the same time, just want to have both depending on what I'm doing on the comptuer at the time).  If I have only one connection, the computer will auto adjust and make it look good.  I've messed with the resolution in display properties and it doesn't help.

If that's not the case, and its caused by something else, any other suggestions to make this work?

Probably no way to make this "just work" without the monitor manufacturers making changes to the way the VGA ports on their monitors work (not gonna happen).

Maybe a VGA switchbox would work better, rather than just a split cable.

You would need to get a graphics card that supports want you want. My card has three slots, 2 DVI and 1 mini-HDMI and supports two displays at the same time.

What is the make and model of your TV?

What is the make and model of your PC?

If you built it yourself - What video card do you have? What OS are you using?

m6oo said:

Probably no way to make this "just work" without the monitor manufacturers making changes to the way the VGA ports on their monitors work (not gonna happen).

Maybe a VGA switchbox would work better, rather than just a split cable.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking this too since it may be outputting only one resolution and the monitor vs tv doesn't match. Your vid card doesn't have two outputs? Most cards have at least a VGA and DVI so you could use the DVI for monitor and VGA for tv.

Your splitter...does it split it so it can display to 2 monitors (in your case, monitor and tv) at the same time or is it like a switch where you can choose between the tv or monitor?

If it is the first option, it probably does not display correctly because your monitor and tv have different native resolutions. The graphics card can not output 2 different resolutions at the same time on the same vga outlet.

Is there another video out port on your graphics card?