DVI without VGA?

[marty1966]

Hey, I just hooked up my new 19" LCD with VGA and it looked OK, but I
decided to upgrade to DVI. I plugged the DVI in and couldn't get past
the windows splash screen. It seems that the DVI driver maybe isn't
loading, cuz when I use both VGA and DVI, it works, and it even flips
to Digital when I arrive at the desktop.

I don't mind this set up if it is the only way, my problem is that
when windows "energy saver" shuts the monitor off, it always comes
back in Analog and I have to manually switch to Digital.

Any help would be wicked.

I did search google groups and couldn't find an answer that seemed to
match my question.

Thanks, Marty.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Hey, I just hooked up my new 19" LCD with VGA and it looked OK, but I
decided to upgrade to DVI. I plugged the DVI in and couldn't get past
the windows splash screen. It seems that the DVI driver maybe isn't
loading, cuz when I use both VGA and DVI, it works, and it even flips
to Digital when I arrive at the desktop.

I don't mind this set up if it is the only way, my problem is that
when windows "energy saver" shuts the monitor off, it always comes
back in Analog and I have to manually switch to Digital.

Any help would be wicked.

I did search google groups and couldn't find an answer that seemed to
match my question.

Thanks, Marty.

Make & model of this LCD and your vid card?

Luck;
Ken

 

[marty1966]

Yes, of course....128meg 9800 pro / Norcent 965WA

Thanks.

 

[Augustus]

Hey, I just hooked up my new 19" LCD with VGA and it looked OK, but I
decided to upgrade to DVI. I plugged the DVI in and couldn't get past
the windows splash screen. It seems that the DVI driver maybe isn't
loading, cuz when I use both VGA and DVI, it works, and it even flips
to Digital when I arrive at the desktop.

I don't mind this set up if it is the only way, my problem is that
when windows "energy saver" shuts the monitor off, it always comes
back in Analog and I have to manually switch to Digital.

Any help would be wicked.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. You have both the DVI cable and the VGA
cable connected at the same time? And the system defaults to VGA on bootup?
What type of DVI cable are you using? The right one for your card and
monitor? Look at

http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html#Page02

 

[J. Clarke]

Hey, I just hooked up my new 19" LCD with VGA and it looked OK, but I
decided to upgrade to DVI. I plugged the DVI in and couldn't get past
the windows splash screen. It seems that the DVI driver maybe isn't
loading, cuz when I use both VGA and DVI, it works, and it even flips
to Digital when I arrive at the desktop.

I don't mind this set up if it is the only way, my problem is that
when windows "energy saver" shuts the monitor off, it always comes
back in Analog and I have to manually switch to Digital.

Any help would be wicked.

I did search google groups and couldn't find an answer that seemed to
match my question.

Have you tried turning everything off, unplugging the computer, waiting
at least a full minute by the clock, powering up the monitor, and then
the computer?

 

[marty1966]

Have you tried turning everything off, unplugging the computer, waiting
at least a full minute by the clock, powering up the monitor, and then
the computer?

--

I will try the hard reboot now without VGA. The cable is Philips,
looks like it's for TV's...Does that make a difference? I see by the
website, there is a difference, I just can't tell if the one I have
will so the job. At the moment it isn't.

Thanks again all.

 

[marty1966]

I will try the hard reboot now without VGA. The cable is Philips,
looks like it's for TV's...Does that make a difference? I see by the
website, there is a difference, I just can't tell if the one I have
will so the job. At the moment it isn't.

Thanks again all.

OK, so I unplugged for a couple of minutes, started up with only the
DVI cable. I saw the post, saw the Windows splash screen and when it
was switching to the password screen, the monitor went blank, as it
has done since I first installed the DVI cable, but this time I tried
something different. I unplugged the DVI cable from the Monitor and
waited a few seconds, then plugged it back in, what do you know, the
password screen came up.

I do not get it, also, I have not seen if it will come back from sleep
without the VGA cable.

So, what the heck? Is it the wrong DVI cable? It has 9 pis then
space then 9 more pins then the single flat pin. Philips M62811 DVI
Cable.

Thanks, Marty.

 

[Barry Watzman]

You have a DVI-D cable.

First, it is NOT normal to use both an analog and a DVI cable. That's
not to say that this is your problem or that it shouldn't work, but it's
not the way it's usually done. If your PC has a DVI out and your
monitor has a DVI in, then normally you just use a DVI cable.

And a DVI-D cable should work fine, although if I was buying a cable I'd
prefer DVI-I.

Some [particularly older and/or cheap] monitors are incompatible with
some [particularly older and/or cheap] video cards. They just won't
work well together. A common symptom is that you can't see the
pre-windows boot-up stuff (make going into BIOS setup VERY difficult).
I had two ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon cards, one was an 8500, the other was
an 8500DV, and one of those cards had that symptom, the other didn't.
It's caused by an incomplete or incompatible bios, and really there is
no fix for it other than to get a newer video card (or possibly a
different monitor ... but the card is the problem almost all of the time).

Note that a DVI monitor and a DVI video card have a "conversation" at
power-up in which the monitor tells the card what it supports and the
card is supposed to initialize itself in a way that is compatible with
the monitor. If the monitor is disconnected or unpowered when the
computer is turned on, this conversation can't occur, and in many cases
there is no recovery from that other than to turn off the computer and
start over (the bios in some cards can recover from this, while the bios
in other video cards can't).

 

[Augustus]

So, what the heck? Is it the wrong DVI cable? It has 9 pis then

space then 9 more pins then the single flat pin. Philips M62811 DVI
Cable.

You have a DVI-D Single Link cable. I suspect that a DVI-D Dual Link cable
would cure the problem. Even though a bottom feeder 19" shouldn't need a
dual link, there's plenty of posts and threads about this specific monitor
and others blanking out and having issues with a single link. Just don't
expect a vast visual difference from VGA to DVI on this monitor.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Almost all 19" monitors are 1280x1024 resolution. A single link cable
should be fine, in fact at that resolution I doubt if the 2nd link would
be used even if it was present.

The difference between VGA and DVI in terms of quality varies
tremendously, all the way from no visible difference to huge. As the
difference depends on the video card, the cable, the monitor, and the
adjustment of the monitor, the only way to tell is to try it (and since
adjustment is a factor, and since everything changes at different
resolutions, there isn't even a single answer for a given set of hardware).

Very often, analog connections have "ghosting" caused by poor quality
analog cables (including, very often, those supplied with the monitor).
Also, very often, the dot clock frequency and phase of analog
connections is not adjusted (at all) or is improperly adjusted [almost
all monitors have an "auto" setting; and in most cases, it gets close
but does not get to the "best" or a "perfect" adjustment].

It may well be true that there is little or no difference between a DVI
connection and a perfectly adjusted analog connection over a high
quality, low capacitance cable, but having "a perfectly adjusted analog
connection over a high quality, low capacitance cable" is so uncommon
that in fact the difference may be quite significant.

[Another factor here is the expectations of the evaluator and their
ability to even recognize display imperfections and shortcomings.]

 

[Augustus]

Almost all 19" monitors are 1280x1024 resolution. A single link cable
should be fine, in fact at that resolution I doubt if the 2nd link would
be used even if it was present.

His monitor is 1440x900 native. I know it should not need dual link.
Nevertheless, there are posts on various forums from people with his
specific monitor not working in a manner very similar to what he is
describing.

 

[marty1966]

His monitor is 1440x900 native. I know it should not need dual link.
Nevertheless, there are posts on various forums from people with his
specific monitor not working in a manner very similar to what he is
describing.

Yes, 1440x900 native.

I will try the DVI-I, since as it is, I am disconnecting, reconnecting
the DVI cable everytime I boot.

Also, I found a huge difference between Analog and Digital, just
looking at desktop icon labels, these were blurry using analog (could
very well have been the cable, don't know), digital every bit of
typing on the screen is very sharp.
Just seems to me there should be some windows setting to get this
thing to work on boot.

One more thing, the monitor is not identified in device manager, it is
just a generic plug and play. I looked for drivers and it seems there
are none.

Thanks, Marty.

 

[Augustus]

Yes, 1440x900 native.

I will try the DVI-I, since as it is, I am disconnecting, reconnecting
the DVI cable everytime I boot.

You'd better look and see if that monitor takes a DVI-I first. Neither my
Samsung or LG 19" do and they are high end units. They take DVI-D.

 

[Barry Watzman]

DVI-D is a subset of DVI-I; so by definition, all DVI-D monitors will
take DVI-I, but the -I connector has some extra pins for the analog
signal (which are not used by the -D monitor). If necessary, these pins
can simply be broken off at the connector so that the DVI-I connector
will fit into the DVI-D socket (this is easier said than done, but it
can be done).