Trying to hook up a large monitor to my HP 9470M laptop

[bnlusa]

I actually have 3 different issues.

First, I am trying to hook up an external monitor to my HP 9470M laptop using HDMI to VGA Cable Gold-plated 1080P HDMI Male to VGA Male Active Video Adapter Converter Cord.

For some reason when I hook up this cable (it is brand new) to my laptop it does not recognized the external monitor, so I need help on how to make this work, preferrably where I can have both my 14" laptop screen on and the external monitor which is a large screen on at the same time.

The operating system is Windows 10 pro. 

THe second issue.  When I right click in a blank space on my taskbar the list that the shows up does not include Properties or Open to Windows Desk top, so I would like to know how to fix that as well.

Third, for some reason there seems to be no way to get to the desktop, rather the things you normally see when you click on the Windows Logo icon are what is one what would be the desktop.  When you click on the Windows Logo icon it does nothing.

Not sure why that is happening as typically I put all my shortcuts on my desktop and I cannot do this the way things are working currently.

Hope you can solve my problems.

Thanks, Bruce [edit]

[old_geekster]

@bnlusa, welcome to the forum.

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@bnlusa wrote:

I actually have 3 different issues.

First, I am trying to hook up an external monitor to my HP 9470M laptop using HDMI to VGA Cable Gold-plated 1080P HDMI Male to VGA Male Active Video Adapter Converter Cord.

For some reason when I hook up this cable (it is brand new) to my laptop it does not recognized the external monitor, so I need help on how to make this work, preferrably where I can have both my 14" laptop screen on and the external monitor which is a large screen on at the same time.  When you have the cable connected to the laptop and the monitor, press the Windows key and the P at the same time.  This will open the Project menu so you can choose how you want to use the monitor; PC screen only, Duplicate, Extend or Second screen only.  I am using the Second screen only which turns my laptop screen black.

The operating system is Windows 10 pro. 

THe second issue.  When I right click in a blank space on my taskbar the list that the shows up does not include Properties or Open to Windows Desk top, so I would like to know how to fix that as well.  I have Windows 10 Pro on my laptop and the two items that you mention are not in the menu when I right click on the Taskbar.  I am not certain what you want to do.  I would appreciate a bit more information.

Third, for some reason there seems to be no way to get to the desktop, rather the things you normally see when you click on the Windows Logo icon are what is one what would be the desktop.  When you click on the Windows Logo icon it does nothing.  When the computer boots it opens to the Desktop.  The Windows Logo icon has a list of all of the apps that are on the computer.  You can left click on any app and drag it to your desktop which makes a link.  Also, you can right click on the apps and choose to them appear in the Taskbar or Start menu.  If you don't have any apps in the Start menu, you may have to reinstall Windows 10.

Not sure why that is happening as typically I put all my shortcuts on my desktop and I cannot do this the way things are working currently.

Hope you can solve my problems.

Thanks, Bruce [edit]

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Please click the Thumbs up + button if I have helped you and click Accept as Solution if your problem is solved.

[bnlusa]

First thank you for your help.  On the first issue  I will try your suggestion and see if that works.

On my second question you said when you right click in a blank space on your taskbar the options Properties and Show Desktop do not show up.  When I right click on my other laptop and most that I work on you have the following options:

Tools, Cortana, Show Task View Button, Show people on Taskbar, Show windows ink workspace button, show touch keyboard button, Cascade windows, show windows stacke, show windows side by side, Show Desktop, Task Manager, Lock the Taskbar and  Taskbar setting.  So I want to know how to get those options when I right click in the blank space on the Taskbar?

On my third issue, it dealt with the fact that the Windows Logo icon on the Taskbar does nothing whenyou click on it and that is probably because all that stuff that does show up when you click on the Windows icon on the taskbar is already showing up on  your screen which normally would be where your desktop is.  Typically when you get a new computer and it opens to the desktop, not much is on it except for a few shortcuts and things like Recycle Bin, My PC  and maybe one or two other icons.  Once you start using your new computer most people then add shortcuts or itmes they want to keep handy on their desktop.  So I just want a desktop that looks like when you typically get a new computer, not one that has all the icons and all the different programs  you have on your computer showing up in the desktop area?  I have seen this issue before on some computers but do not remember how to fix it so that the normal desktop shows up?

I hope I have my myself a little clearer and you can help me solves these issues.

Thank you.

[old_geekster]

You are welcome, @bnlusa.  Thank you for the additional information.

I have always used Windows 10 Home in the past.  I found that Windows 10 Pro is somewhat different in what you find in the menus.  When I right click on the Taskbar this is what I see:

Toolbars

Cortana

Show task view button

Show people on the taskbar

Show windows workspace button

Show touch keyboard button

Show touchpad button

Cascade windows

Show windows stacked

Show windows side by side
Show the desktop

Task Manager

Lock the taskbar

Taskbar settings

Is this what you see?

On your third question, I am not certain how to answer.  It appears to me that when Windows was installed there may have been a glitch.  When I click on the Windows Start button (Windows logo) I see an alphabetical list of all of the apps on my laptop.  Also, there are a few apps that have been Pinned to Start.  This is 21 items.  I may have removed some previously.  I clean things up when I first get a computer.  I can click on them and Unpin from Start to remove them or left click on an app in the list and drag it to my desktop.  Beyond this I don't know what to say.

[bnlusa]

FIgure out the answers to my second and third question.  The laptop was in Tablet mode.  Once I clicked out of Tablet mode it solved those two questions I had.

Thanks again for all your help.  Hopefully your solution concern adding another monitor will solve my first question.

[old_geekster]

@bnlusa, you are very welcome.  Thank you for the update.  I didn't even give Tablet Mode a thought.  My wife uses it on her HP laptop all of the time.  I will remember this for the future.

[bnlusa]

Problem solved.  The plan was to hookup an external monitor to a laptop.

The laptop did not have an HDMI port.  All it had to connect an external monitor were a VGA port and a Display port.

So first I ordered a new cord that had VGA on one end and HDMI on the other, but for some reason it did not work.  I tried every setting you could think of.  Maybe it was a bad cord.  We know where you plug in the VGA connection on the laptop was okay, because it gave that connection sound like when you plug in a flash drive, wired mouse or wired keyboard.

So I returned that cord and ordered another adapter with a male Display port on one end and a female HDMI port on the other end ($6.98 on Amazon) and then hooked up a HDMI cord that had male's on each end, one to the adapter and the other to the back of the monitor, hit the windows logo key and the P key on keyboard at the same time, selected duplicate and it worked great.

[David_J_W]

A HDMI to VGA cord is only designed to work the other way round to what you were trying - HDMI source connected to a VGA display.

There is no easy way to make a digital display signal (DisplayPort, HDMI or the older DVI-D standard) out of an analogue video source such as VGA. The correct way ahead is to convert one digital signal to another.

Most DisplayPort sources are designed to work with inexpensive and readily available passive DisplayPort to HDMI cables and adapters. You happened on the correct answer - a DisplayPort to HDMI cable, then use Win+P to configure Windows to use the additional screen.