Nowadays many people want bigger and bigger screens for their computer monitors, especially for playing games or watching a cool HD movie.

But not many people are that technical and, let’s face it, most of them just don’t go through the trouble of reading the manual of the TV that they bought or are too lazy or embarrassed to ask the guy in the store about this possibility. Thus, many of us turn to the internet for our various needs, mostly because it’s easier to get information. But that’s just if you know how to refine your searches.

If you want to use a TV for a monitor and you reached this webpage, you’re in luck. I am going to explain to you how to do this. It’s not rocket science, nor brain surgery. It’s just a matter of connecting two gadgets together.



There are three popular output ports on your computer that can help you. The VGA port, the DVI port and, of course, the HDMI port. Most of modern day computers usually have both HDMI and VGA outputs. But that’s not always true. My laptop, for example, only has a VGA output port, although the video card supports HD decoding, and there are other notebooks from its generation that have a HDMI output. Anyway, the VGA port is easy to recognize: it has three rows and 15 pins/pin slots, and has the shape of a trapezoid with rounded corners. The connector with pin slots is known as a female connector and the other, with pins, is known as a male connector. To use the TV as a screen you can use a VGA cable, which has two male connectors, to connect the port of the computer to the TVs port, if the TV has such a thing.

For a better display image, DVI and HDMI ports are used. The DVI ports looks like a more square VGA port with a greater number of pins/pin slots. DVI, aka Digital Vision Interface, is split into three categories: analog, digital and integrated. The ones found on most video cards are mostly DVI-D ports and connecting two such ports in a similar way to the VGAs (but using a DVI cable) you get a much better display image.



Finally, the HDMI. This is the bee’s knees when it comes to display quality is this kind of port, that looks like a stressed out USB port. And if you have to connect a HDMI device and a DVI one, you can do so by using the popular DVI-to-HDMI adapter.

So there. Now you know the basics. All you have to do is go check your computer’s output ports and your TV’s too. Then, if you don’t have one, buy a cable to connect the two and you’re off.

When using a computer, you have the option of turning the TV to computer monitor. This is a great choice because you can use the TV screen for watching HD movies, playing games, and many other options and possibilities. There are some steps that you need to follow in order to be able to use the TV screen as a computer monitor and I am going to tell what those steps are. One of the most important things that you need to do prior to setting the TV screen as a computer monitor is to identify the connections of input of the TV.


The TV has in most of the cases one of the following inputs: RCA composite input, connector of S-video, or coaxial cable. These inputs were mostly present in the older TVs, as the newer ones have different inputs. The new types of inputs are HDMI, DVI, Component Video, and VGA. There is a high possibility that the computer will have these outputs, but even if it doesn’t you can buy an adapter which will allow you to connect the computer to the TV screen without any problems.

The S-video connection seems to be the most popular and it is present in both the computers and the TV. In most of the cases, the manufacturers are adding to the computer, outputs which are compatible with the TVs, but like I said, an adapter will take care of the problems. You can find various adapters for the TV, one of the best that you can choose being the wireless one. Once you have identified that the computer is compatible with the TV, you simply have to connect the output of the monitor with the input of the TV screen. The next thing that you need to do is start the TV and see if the connection is made.

In some of the cases you will have to make some settings in the operating system. You will have to go to the display option, select the second monitor, which in this case will be represented by the TV screen, and then choose to make it active. Once you have done this, the wallpaper of the computer should appear on the TV screen. You will not see the icons displayed on the TV screen because it will act as the second monitor, meaning that it will be like a continuation of it.



In order to view movies for example, you will have to drag the program which runs the movies into the second screen and then double click on it in order to maximize the image. Once you are done, deselect the option which made the second screen active. This is how you turn the TV to computer monitor.