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AV Troubleshooting - Laptop displaying with color or other image problems
How to troubleshoot problems with laptops displaying in AV rooms
- Check that all cables between the laptop and the system are connected and fully seated
- Check that all pins are intact (VGA cables especially)
- Try a new cable/adapter if possible
If an image displays, but the colors are all wrong (everything is tinted magenta, cyan, blue, green, etc) this indicates that there is a missing pin (or two) on a VGA cable.
If the image displays, but is particularly dark, cut off horizontally, or extremely ghosted - check for a horizontal shift or image shift control near where the VGA plugs into the system. This will be a knob or a left and right button. Try adjusting these settings until the image is both the correct brightness and properly aligned to the projector. If you can't get it exact, get it close and then find the Auto-Image button and press that. This will take about 3 seconds to adjust the image at the projector and should correct minor alignment issues.
If a solid color only is displayed, it may be a number of issues:
- Solid Blue - most likely no signal to the projector
- Solid Black - most likely no signal to a video switch device, may also be an HDCP issue
- Solid Green - this is an HDCP problem
Note: There is a known issue between some older VGA systems and Windows 7 and later OSs where the video drivers will not recognize the display properly and will display a 16:9 image to a 4:3 projector. The projector does not letter box the image resulting in the 16:9 image being cropped to 4:3. This has only been discovered on older analog systems with Horizontal Shift knobs or buttons.