[powertrippin]

I'm looking for a fairly cheap PCI card with an ADC connector. Do they exist?

[yukon]

To the best of my limited knowledge and searching, no.

Better to just get an adapter, ADC is a nice standard, but it's not the standard.

[powertrippin]

Adaptors are expensive. If I could get a cheap ADC video card with PCI connection maybe that'd be cheaper.

[Lateralus]

There is no such thing.

[powertrippin]

dammit. I don't want to pay $100 f*cking dollars for a freakin adaptor. Is there anyway to hack the cable to provide it with some power?

[Lateralus]

No.

[powertrippin]

This pisses me off. Why the hell does apple have to use something that ISNT STANDARD? ****ing lame.

[yukon]

Well yeah. It's nonstandard. When my Apple monitor turned out to be VGA, I was very happy, no more "mac monitors", no more "high definition" monitor plugs with all those bendable pins. Then they went ADC, and I wondered what the hell they were thinking, maybe their apple-brand monitor sales took a dive because of the price. I probably posted my disappointment here somewhere. ADC happens to be a nice standard though, it sends power and all that, it complicates the power requirements of the video hardware (special AGP slots, etc), but IIRC it is an RFC, and it's an elegant choice for a "there's only three cables" macintosh. But it's nonstandard, expensive and a pain in the ass quite frankly, Apple should have worked with the industry first.

Well, that's all IMO, please don't flame, it's my judgement of ADC and that has to be subjective. I do think it's true though. Buy an adapter, sell the Apple monitor and buy a cheap decent quality standard monitor, whatever, have fun. I'm biased against Apple CRTs now, great colour matching but failure-prone, but they don't make those now outside the eMac.

[powertrippin]

You're dead on. It just pisses me off because I have two ADC monitors, and in order to use them, I need a dual digital card. So that pretty much means I need a video card with ADC AND DVI, which pretty much means I need to spend another f*cking hundred dollars just to power the dang monitor. There has to be a hack for this somehow... I don't mind cutting up the damn cable and soldering something, but this is just annoying.

[yukon]

There are dual digital cards you can flash, I'm new to that though so I can't recommend one.

IMHO, sell the monitors. They cost quite a bit, I'm sure, you can still get quite a bit I'm sure. Standard monitors are cheaper and can be good.....I don't know Apple's LCDs other than the "wow, that's a big monitor" factor, but I know their CRTs, which were great for acuraccy, but they used crappy components ("the flyback transformer on the analog board is shorting when it heats up, I need a replacement for either", I knew that phrase too well).

[powertrippin]

But with dual digital cards, I'd need TWO of those freaking adaptors... meaning I really need one with ADC, meaning I need an actualy APPLE card and not a PC one. ARGH.

[Link]

Oh wake up and smell the coffee, you knew what you were doing when you laid down big money on those monitors, right?

.... RIGHT?

Why are you whining about something you already knew? If you bought a set of 17"ers, sell em and get some 172xs or something, right now about your only choices for dual digital are to get a geforce 4ti or a radeon 9600, and the 9600 has core image support. Even then, if you hack the power pins over to power the first jack from the motherboard, you'll need to buy a power adaptor for the second monitor -- since that's what a DVI to ADC "adaptor" is

There are no cards with dual ADC, and there are no PCI cards with ADC -- this is because it requires a header on the motherboard which is powered by the power supply itself.. yes this was all a really bad idea when it comes down to it, but for whatever reason, apple did it, and you bought it. If you're really against buying $100 adaptors, go find a few used or buy them off ebay since you'll be sure to save $20-30 there, even if they're Dr. Bott ones. I'd still strongly suggest selling them though, since 17"ers in particular are still worth a considerable amount of money (what, $400 each? Maybe 500?) -- which might not be much compared to their original price tag, but more than enough to get some dell 20"ers or a bunch of nice samsung screens or something!

Then you won't need an adaptor, either

As for dual digital, YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT LCDS here, and the LCDs that are worth the money you pay for are DVI-based, I'm not sure what's up with companies even TRYING to sell "pro" cards, or even "gaming" cards without dual DVI, but they're doing it anyway. Admittedly, the only way you'll be able to flash a dual digital PC card into a mac one is to get a FireGL X3, or maybe an X2 (no idea there) -- good luck there.

It's too bad about the dual digital thing though, but I still think you're whining a bit too much about the ADC thing. It's not apple's fault (or ATI's, or anyone else's), that you didn't read the damn spec sheet.

[powertrippin]

See, the thing is, I got the 17" ADC Studio LCD free. I bought it with a system, and sold everything else so I basically did not pay for this monitor. The 20" cinema I have came with my maxxed out dual 1.33ghz g4 tower, so it was also a really really good price. I think I might sell both and get a 23" HD Cinema display.

- Rob

[thereubster]

Dont buy the 23" inch DVI ALu Cinema dispaly. Have you not heard about the continuing quality issues? Buy a Dell (seriously)

[powertrippin]

I've heard problems of the 23" ACD cinema displays, but not the HD Aluminum ones.

[Link]

Originally Posted by powertrippin

I've heard problems of the 23" ACD cinema displays, but not the HD Aluminum ones.

lol, I've heard of problems with aluminum ones, but not the ACD ones

[Skip Breakfast]

Some of you might have missed something. You can not run an ADC off a PCI card because of electricity! You can't have two ADC monitors on the same card for the SAME reason. You have to go to Dr. Bott for the $100 adapter. Period.

[Skip Breakfast]

P.S. Wrong forum. This belongs in Power Macs or Peripherals, not Mods.