How do I connect a monitor to my laptop and have it work?

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this is something really useful!

i presume the reverse is not possible? i.e. watching for example DVD player's output on laptop's LCD, because laptops dont have a video input channel?

i guess this is why graphic cards cant be added / upgraded in laptops

RE:hook up a monitor to my laptop

Thanks Leo. This is very useful (I have a Dell Inspiron). I didn't try to hook the second monitor yet.

My question is : Do I need to install the monitor driver first?

Thanks, Dan

No drivers are needed. Just hook it up and go.

This is all fine and good for Windows XP. However, Windows Vista has this annoying feature called "Presentation Settings." Sometimes it comes on when I hook up my external monitor and sometimes it doesn't. When it does turn on, it flashes on and off about 10 times over the course of a minute before you can actually see anything longer than about 5 seconds. It defaults to preventing your screen saver from going on (which is useful if you really are doing a presentation, but not otherwise). In addition, Vista has the annoying "feature" of randomly going into mirrored, single or multiple displays depending upon what it "decides" to do when the external display is attached. The magical button may or may not fix the problem, and usually doesn't once you close the lid (since that is a different setting altogether on your laptop). The problems are actually much more significant than the article would indicate, especially if you are using Vista.

Thanks all for the input. I'll feedback here as soon as I have a chance to hook it up. Fortunately, I could keep away from Vista so far but I don't know how long I'll be able to escape it. This is off topic but let me ask you this in case my 7 year-old XP machine gives up on me : Which version of Vista should I get? I just use my PC for the usual stuff and to develop applications in Delphi (32 bit). Thanks for your time.

Dan

To Dan:
I choose not to go with Vista when I purchased a PC in June 2008, but I had to build it and purchase XP software. This is - and should continue to be - an option, and it just isn't that hard to build one.
Doug

A new connection for an external monitor is starting to appear called a Display Port. This is an interesting article on the topic.
http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=161

To Richard Deem
Yep! When I close and reopen the lid, the monitor is resized to the laptop screen size. I have XP.

To Doug Proctor
Keeping XP on a new machine is an option but I guess I'll go for Vista since I develop free/sharewares apps. For the moment, I give them to my friend to test on his Vista box. Getting Vista would make me independent. He has the highest Vista version (I don't know the name) but given the trouble he is having with it, I'd appreciate comments on the best Vista version for my purpose (just an Internet, office and development machine.

To Michael Horowitz
Great link. Thanks!

Lastly, how about connecting an external keyboard to a Dell Inspiron? I have 2 spare keyboards but couldn't find a suitable connector on the laptop.

Dan

Vista should also be aware that Presentation Settings behavior may be masking another problem. The graphics card probably has software that controls some of the same things that PS does. In my case, updating the driver for my NVIDIA graphics card and then using the NVIDIA Control Panel (accessed by right-clicking on a blank part of the desktop) solved my problem. Now setting up an external monitor is easy and reliable.

uhh i pluged in the cable into my toshiba laptop and put the cable into the samsung tv useing the vga cord.
it starts up fine but then it just cuts off... i don't use a dell so i don't know where the crt/lcd botton is it's just alot of pictrues which i don't know what they mean at the f1 f2 f3 ect. thing. i have found the fn botton though. the resilution is correct too.
if you could help me that would be great i really looked forward to playing on the big screen. anyways thank you if you could help me.I'm going to keep trying through trial and error but if you could get back to me thats great

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