chuckles304 wrote:

I'd like to use a tv as a monitor, but I'm afraid my relic of a laptop isn't making this easy. It has a VGA (I think) port and some other white port but no HDMI. The TV has HDMI and whatever else TVs made in '07 have. After some research I discovered a VGA to HDMI converter but it also carries audio. Given that I have a NAD receiver and accompanying system, I'd rather have that decode the audio than the TV. I'm basically just looking for suggestions on simple ways to do this without breaking the bank. Thanks.

The laptop no doubt has an analog audio (speaker) output jack, which can feed the audio direct to the NAD receiver. That is no problem. You just need a cable that has a pair of RCA connectors on one end and a stereo mini-plug at the other (monoprice #9768 for example) to hook to the laptop.

The VGA to HDMI converter should be no problem; just use it for the video only and forget the audio connections and don't use them.