Trying to hook up a pc to a tv

[The Last Ancient]

Ok, not sure where to post this, but hopefully there are more tech savvy people on this forum then I am. Basically I'm trying to hook up my mom's new hp computer to her fairly new samsung hdtv.

I bought a dvi to hdmi cable and that successfully put the picture on the tv but without sound.

I am looking for what exactly the correct sound cable is for the computer. I think its a 3.5mm something or another but this is where it gets too techy for me. It needs to be 15 feet or so.

I also noticed that there is another spot, labeled pc on the back of the hdtv. This is not the hdmi port where I am plugging my dvi to hdmi cable. I wondered if there is a better cable I could get, a dvi to whatever the hell that slot is on the back of the tv, that would hopefully transfer sound as well.

My mom wants to stream netflix and doesn't have a device downstairs and doesn't want to watch it on the computer, hence my predicament. Any help would be much appreciated as I am tired of trying to figure it out, thank you.

[VeloZer0]

Depends on what quality of sound you are looking for. If you aren't picky like me you just hook it up with a headphone jack in the back of your computer. Or run the sound through the computers existing speakers.

Scroll down to the "• 2.5mm/RCA Audio Cables" section and pick your length.
Audio Cables - RCA / 3.5mm

Depending on your motherboard/sound card you may have other hookups for higher quality/surround sound. Other than that as far as I know if you want higher quality sound you are looking at purchasing a graphics card with an HDMI output slot. (Which you can pick up for just over $100)

[kotora]

If your PC and TV support it you could connect a TOSLINK cable for audio. That "PC" slot on the back of your TV is probably just a VGA port. You don't need it if you're already using digital video.

[Baloki]

If your graphics card supports HDMI it will also have HDMI audio drivers allowing the audio as well as video to be carried through it. I would recommend upgrading your graphics card drivers to the latest version and then checking the options within the graphics cards control panel.

Edit: Other thing, since your doing the dvi to HDMI, do the graphics drivers updates and make sure that the adapter you are using has a cross on one side of it next to the normal pins as that's used to transmit the audio.

[kotora]

Just because a graphics card supports DVI to HDMI doesn't mean it comes with audio. DVI only carries a video signal.

[Baloki]

DVI is mostly compatible with HDMI. The main difference is that DVI typically carries no audio data in its TMDS channel, although increasingly, modern PC video hardware is providing audio (e.g., cards by NVIDIA and ATI), allowing the PC to send audiovisual data through a DVI cable to a high definition television with an HDMI input. If a PC's DVI output does not support HDMI audio, an adapter may be required to combine the DVI video signal with analog or digital audio. Since HDMI carries digital audio interleaved with the video data, these adapters can be relatively expensive (e.g., Gefen DVI w/Audio to HDMI).

[Peegee]

DVI is mostly compatible with HDMI. The main difference is that DVI typically carries no audio data in its TMDS channel, although increasingly, modern PC video hardware is providing audio (e.g., cards by NVIDIA and ATI), allowing the PC to send audiovisual data through a DVI cable to a high definition television with an HDMI input. If a PC's DVI output does not support HDMI audio, an adapter may be required to combine the DVI video signal with analog or digital audio. Since HDMI carries digital audio interleaved with the video data, these adapters can be relatively expensive (e.g., Gefen DVI w/Audio to HDMI).

This - what video card are you working with OP? I had to install 'audio drivers' for my video card. I just shrugged and did it.