HDMI cable help

[Assassinscreed548]

So it's my birthday and I got Black Ops and an HDMI cable, for my PC.
Now I have an HDMI port in my PC and in my screen, however when plugged in the screen goes black, upon taking out the cable, the screen works again. Did i buy a wrong cable or is there something i should do before inserting the cable? thank you.

both sides are HDMI ports, not DVI and HDMI... is this a problem?
please help me. thanks again

 

[Boemmel]

Well, Happy Birthday first, then

Then: I think we could use a little more info here. As far as I understand it, you have a PC with a graphics card that has a HDMI port, right? And you have another screen (maybe a TV?) that you want to plug in to your PC with the HDMI cable?, right? What does the graphics control panel on your PC say? Does it recognize the new monitor? What graphics card is it anyway (ATI/NVIDIA/something else? Which model?) What screen do you want to add and what screen did you use before on your PC? A little more detail would make troubleshooting much easier

 

[thejdcole]

I have to agree with Boemmel, we need a bit more information than this to really help you .

However one possibility i can think of is that you may have two ports on the back of your video card.. one being either DVI or VGA and the other is the HDMI you speak of. Maybe (for what ever reason) you need to switch between using the DVI and hdmi ports on your graphics card using a control panel for your card.. maybe. I'm not sure at all if this is the case but it's a possibility.

 

[Assassinscreed548]

Well, Happy Birthday first, then

Then: I think we could use a little more info here. As far as I understand it, you have a PC with a graphics card that has a HDMI port, right? And you have another screen (maybe a TV?) that you want to plug in to your PC with the HDMI cable?, right? What does the graphics control panel on your PC say? Does it recognize the new monitor? What graphics card is it anyway (ATI/NVIDIA/something else? Which model?) What screen do you want to add and what screen did you use before on your PC? A little more detail would make troubleshooting much easier

Thank you, first of all and I have a ATI card, im attempting to plug in the PC, which on the back of the case has an HDMI port, to my computer screen, which also has an HDMI port... Nothing is displayed when i plug it in, for the screen goes black, but the computer is still working...as if i set the screen on standby. as soon as i take the cable out of the screen, the screen turns on again. could you help me out? all the information on the internets seems to be...about something else

 

[Assassinscreed548]

I have to agree with Boemmel, we need a bit more information than this to really help you .

However one possibility i can think of is that you may have two ports on the back of your video card.. one being either DVI or VGA and the other is the HDMI you speak of. Maybe (for what ever reason) you need to switch between using the DVI and hdmi ports on your graphics card using a control panel for your card.. maybe. I'm not sure at all if this is the case but it's a possibility.

thanks for the info, il check that out

 

[General_Potatoes]

If your comps anything like mine you might be able to plug it into a plasma tv.

 

[Boemmel]

Thank you, first of all and I have a ATI card, im attempting to plug in the PC, which on the back of the case has an HDMI port, to my computer screen, which also has an HDMI port... Nothing is displayed when i plug it in, for the screen goes black, but the computer is still working...as if i set the screen on standby. as soon as i take the cable out of the screen, the screen turns on again. could you help me out? all the information on the internets seems to be...about something else

Alright, a little bit more info, we might come closer to the problem

So I understand that the screen you try to plug in is a computer screen and the PC you try to add has no other screen already, yes? So the screen would be the first and only one? Do you have another screen then which you could try to plug into the PC first, preferably with another connection? It could even be a very old one with just a VGA port or something, just one which you can confirm already works, as actually seeing something on the PC greatly helps with troubleshooting

Also, did you select the HDMI port on the screen as the input source already? If this is a PC monitor, chances are good that it has more inputs that just HDMI. Maybe you had another port selected and therefore the monitor just did not show you anything? If so, you can usually change input sources somewhere in the On-Screen menu of your screen itself, you might have to check the manual how to do that.

Otherwise, with an ATI card, you should have plenty of possibilities for monitor setup within the Catalyst Control Center. Make sure you have the newest version first and install it together with all the most recent updates for the card. In the case of ATI cards with HDMI this is especially important since they also can transport Sound over the HDMI port but if I remember correctly, there were some early growing pains in the drivers with regards to HDMI output so make sure you have all the latest ones.

If all those do not help, please get back to me and try to give us more details about your setup. Ideally, like mentioned before not only how exactly the screen and PC are set up, but things like the exact ATI card model, screen manufacturer and model and all those things can be immensely helpful. Do not fret if you cannot find those, we might still solve the problem, but this way, it might take quite a bit longer. And I believe you might be as anxious as I usually am about trying out birthday gifts as soon as possible

 

[Starnerf]

What were you using to connect the PC to the screen before?

 

[Virgil]

If you haven't done this already:

1) Turn off your PC.
2) Unplug all the cables from your video card.
3) Unplug all the non-power cables from your monitor.
4) Connect your monitor to your video card using the HDMI cable
5) Boot your machine

If the HDMI display, and only the HDMI display, is connected, your PC boot screens should show up immediately. If it's still not working, you'll want to go into your PCs BIOS and make sure that either the HDMI output is enabled and set as the primary (if it's an integrated video card), or that your onboard video is disabled (if you have a real video card).

HDMI connections can be finicky, especially on PCs, and I've run into a variety of odd problems trying to swap things in or out while devices are running. If you don't have a particular reason to use HDMI, and the display and PC support it, I suggest sticking with DVI - they're both digital, support HDCP, and have the same picture quality.

 

[Starnerf]

If you haven't done this already:

1) Turn off your PC.
2) Unplug all the cables from your video card.
3) Unplug all the non-power cables from your monitor.
4) Connect your monitor to your video card using the HDMI cable
5) Boot your machine

If the HDMI display, and only the HDMI display, is connected, your PC boot screens should show up immediately. If it's still nto working, you'll want to go into your PCs BIOS and make sure that either the HDMI output is enabled and set as the primary (if it's an integrated video card), or that your onboard video is disabled (if you have a real video card).

HDMI connections can be finicky, especially on PCs, and I've run into a variety of odd problems trying to swap things in or out while devices are running. If you don't have a particular reason to use HDMI, and the display and PC support it, I suggest sticking with DVI - they're both digital, support HDCP, and have the same picture quality.

But what if he wants to use his awesome built-in monitor speakers?

 

[Virgil]

But what if he wants to use his awesome built-in monitor speakers?

If you're dealing with built-in monitor speakers, you're perfectly fine using the standard male-to-male audio jacks that just about everything supports. It's not like a monitor is going to have surround sound built in

With a real set of speakers, you won't be able to use the HDMI audio anyway, since you'll need it to transmit video. In that case, I prefer using S/PDIF optical connections if they're available.