We have designed this lesson to try and help people to understand how to hook up your laptop to our Video projection units that are in the room using our HDMI connections. One of the things we will teach you is how to hook up a Windows laptop. The first thing we want to do is go over a few items that you will find in our room and on your laptop.
The first thing to look for when trying to use the room equipment is directions. We try to keep directions in the room but sometimes the directions get misplaced or have not been created due to new equipment add or updating of directions. You can always email us if you wish to have directions for any room you are teaching in just email us at call-center@neiu.edu and let us know what rooms you want directions for and we will be happy to email them to you. We can also set up a time outside of your class time to go over how the equipment works and to help you learn how to hook up your equipment to our rooms system.
All our rooms are equipment with VGA connections for the laptops some our rooms have HDMI. Some laptops have this connections and our directions for the rooms try to help you with this but sometime we have to keep the directions short in order to keep down to one or two pages so it does not become to long.
Take your laptop and plug in the power of your laptop to a power outlet this can be located on podiums or wall outlets. You do not have to plug in your power cord for you laptop for your laptop to project but it can be a good idea so that your laptop does not run out of power.
If your laptop has an HDMI connection it will look like this.
If this is the case just set the laptop down near the podium or presentation area.
Now look around the room for a cable it is usually around the podium or presentations area of the room. The cable you are looking for is an HDMI cable. It looks like this.
Gently plug in the HDMI cable into the laptops HDMI port.
For the Audio, the audio should go through the HDMI if you connected it through an HDMI Cable that is in the room.
If you are using an adapter that is going from HDMI to VGA then you will need to hook up the mini audio cable either to your headphone jack on the laptop or if your adapter has a mini audio port on it then you will have to connect it to that location.
Example adapter
Example of adapter with audio port
If the audio is giving you problems you might have to go to your laptops audio options through your laptop to see where the audio signal is going out of. For this you may need our assistance.
This is the Universal symbol for headphone jack or 3.5mm
Look for this port somewhere on your laptop or adapter.
Insert the mini audio cable into the head phone port on our computer or adapter if not hooking into one of the HDMI cables in the room if the room is equipped with an HDMI.
Next decide if you wish to use the internet or not. If you think you are then there are two ways to do this at Northeastern Illinois University. You can use a hard wire connection or use our wireless internet connection. You must decide which one you would like to use. If choosing wired internet connection then look around for the Ethernet cable. This is what the cable is called that allows you to hard wire your laptop to the internet. The cable will look something like this.
Look around at your laptop for a port that looks like this.
Hook up the Ethernet cable to your laptops Ethernet port.
Now that you have all cable you need hook up it is time to turn on the equipment.
Turn on the Video Projection unit. The can be different depending on what room you are in. On some rooms it is a remote control on others it is a Crestron touch screen and on others it can be a TV remote.
Whichever it is for which ever room you are in turn the unit on.
Push the correct input on the projection unit this is general told on the directions for the room it can be several options: D-link, HDMI. This is usually marked on the remotes for the projections units.
Before we go on let us go over view options that your laptop has.
Viewing options.
Option 1 Computer only or disconnect projector. This option puts the image on your Laptops screen only. This is what is automatically on your computer when starting up if not plugged into anything.
Option 2 Duplicate or Mirror. This option take the image on your laptops screen and puts it on the laptop and the video projectors image. This is usually the option preferred by most people.
Option 3 Extended. This option puts one image on the laptops screen and shows another image on the video projectors image and can be used to drag images over to show on the projector and not the laptop. Power point has options for this as well. We will not cover this in this lesson.
Option 4. Projector only. This option turns off the laptops screen and puts the image only on the projector.
Now turn on your laptop.
Let your laptop power up. Do any log in options that you have to do on your laptop. Sometimes the projector will see the laptop connected and automatically connect other times it will not. Once the laptops main screen appears if it did not automatically connect then you will have to manually set up the connection. This part of the set up varies from different types of laptops and can get confusing trying to do these steps but see if it this helps. If not feel free to contact us at 773 442-4357 or if call from a hose phone 4357 or 773 442 5060 or if calling from house phone 5060 or email us at helpdesk@neiu.edu or call-center@neiu.edu.
You will have to get the laptop to either Mirror or duplicate the image or extend the image to the projections screen. Usually most people want to Mirror or duplicate the image.
To Mirror your image you can try one of several ways to do this depending on the laptop that you have and the Operational system that you have (Operations system meaning Windows 7, or Windows 10).
If you have a Dell laptop then you can try this.
Hold the FN key or what is called the Function key. This key is used as a short cut key to have the laptop do other functions such as control your image to your laptop.
Hold the FN key down and push F8. The F8 key is sometime also mark on the key in a lite color on the key pad with the words CRT / LCD. Push this key down. This key generally toggles between a few options as talked about.
Each time you push the Function and F8 this will cycle between the different options.
On other laptops such as Acer or Toshiba the keys to mirror you image may be different. Like Fn key or function key and F5. On the key this sometime has a symbol on it like this. A pic of a empty square and a filled square next to it.
Or another option on Compaq and HP is
Fn and F4 this image is one of a small looking projector.
Or like on a Sony laptop
Fn and F7 with an image on it that looks like a Square and a slash mark with a square with and arrow pointing out
Another option to try is the windows symbol and P. This can either go through the option or bring up a screen that will show you the option for your image.
+ P
Select the option you want.
Others will not give this image and you will have to keep pushing the FN key plus the correct function key until you get the image to show up on the projection screen. When pushing Fn keys plus correct key always give it a few seconds before pushing it again.
Another Option for mirroring to try if the options above does not work is to follow the steps below.
On your Task bar on your computer screen go to the far right and look for your intel graphics card option. It may look like this.
Left click on the icon.
This screen will come up. Put the mouse over Intel HD Graphics icon and right click.
The Screen below will pop up then go to Graphic properties and Left click on Graph Options go to Output to
Go to the type of display you want which is usually Clone Display (or Mirror or Duplicate) This will show your image on the laptop and the projector.
If this gets confusing for you please feel free to give us a call or email us at 773 442 5060 or call the help desk at 773 442 4357. Email Call-Center@neiu.edu. Or helpdesk@neiu.edu .
We are always willing to teach you how to use the equipment for each room. We also have directions for the equipment for each room and are more than happy to email them to you or meet up with you outside of class time Monday thru Friday by appointment to help show you the equipment and how the equipment works.
Thank you
Media Services.