How to Connect My HP Laptop to a TV

By Gregory Hamel

A VGA port on the side of a laptop.
i vga image by MATTHIEU FABISIAK from Fotolia.com

Hewlett-Packard Co. manufactures desktop and laptop PCs. If you own an HP laptop, you may wish to use a TV screen as a second monitor to display videos or images on a larger screen or simply to expand the amount of desktop space you have to work with. Connecting a laptop to a TV is a relatively simple process, but it requires that you have the appropriate cables or adapters to connect one to the other.

Inspect the video ports available on your HP laptop. Most computers and laptops have VGA (Video Graphics Array) capability, but some also have S-video, DVI (Digital Visual Interface) and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).

Inspect the video ports available on your TV set. If the two devices have any ports in common, you can use a single cable of the appropriate type to connect them. If not, you will have to use two cables and an adapter in the middle.

Connect one end of a video cable to a port on your laptop. For instance, if your laptop only has VGA, connect a VGA cable to the laptop.

Connect an adapter to the other end of the cable. For instance, connect a VGA to DVI adapter to the end of the cable if your laptop only has VGA and your TV accepts DVI.

Connect a second cable to one end of the adapter, and the other end to the TV set. In the example from Step 4, you would connect a DVI cable to the DVI end of the adapter, and then plug the other end into the TV.

Turn on the laptop and the TV.

Use the TV's remote control to change the video input mode to the appropriate channel. For instance, if you are connecting using DVI, change the TV video mode to DVI.

×