Picture to HDTV, and sound to Surround sound from laptop. HELP!!

cgort90

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Oct 19, 2011
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I am trying to connect my laptop to my Coby HDTV for a great monitor, while at the same time get the 5.1 dolby surround sound from my laptop through my RCA 5.1 surround sound box (not the cable "rca"). I have an optical cable, HDMI cable, and an rca to rca cable. Display to HDTV works but I get no sound from surround. Any thoughts?
 
Solution
Sorry. I misunderstood.

So you have HDMI from the laptop to the HDTV and Optical from the HDTV to the surround sound.

First thing that comes to mind is whether the surround sound system is set to the right input (silly, I know, but it happens).
Next I'd make sure that the optical port on the Coby TV is, in fact, and optical output (not an input).
Next, with the optical cable connected to the HDTV, look at the other end of the cable. You should see a red light. If not, there is no output from the TV.
Finally, I'd check your TV settings to see if there is an audio - optical out option that needs to be set.

-Wolf sends

cgort90

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Oct 19, 2011
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I should clarify that I tried to connect the HDMI to the HDTV from laptop. Then tried to connect the optical cable from the HDTV to the optical IN port on my RCA Surround sound and get no sound but only picture.
 

cgort90

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Oct 19, 2011
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Well yes I do get audio from the HDTV, but I want it through my surround sound that I have set up around my room. I checked in the tv settings but it only has the "Source" input as HDMI 1 and then the optical technically should send audio out to the RCA 5.1 dolby...
 
Sorry. I misunderstood.

So you have HDMI from the laptop to the HDTV and Optical from the HDTV to the surround sound.

First thing that comes to mind is whether the surround sound system is set to the right input (silly, I know, but it happens).
Next I'd make sure that the optical port on the Coby TV is, in fact, and optical output (not an input).
Next, with the optical cable connected to the HDTV, look at the other end of the cable. You should see a red light. If not, there is no output from the TV.
Finally, I'd check your TV settings to see if there is an audio - optical out option that needs to be set.

-Wolf sends
 
Solution

cgort90

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Oct 19, 2011
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I will have to try that red light check. I did search all the settings/manuals of the surround and the Coby to put the surround on "optical" and HDTV on HMDI input of my laptop.

What I could try would be buying a headphone to RCA cable to route the sound from my laptop directly to the surround sound. But I wanted to avoid that because HDMI and optical send sound information better than plain RCA and the mess of chords all over my desk lol.