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Turias · Aug 19, 2004, 12:29 PM

I'm purchasing a G5, but it isn't shipping for a month or so. Meanwhile, my 20" Cinema Display just arrived. Is there any way to attach that to my Yikes! G4? It has a 32MB Radeon video card with VGA input. So, I need a DVI female to VGA male converter. I've looked around for these, but can't find em anywhere. I have seen a DVI male to VGA female, but not the other way around.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

CatOne · Aug 19, 2004, 01:01 PM

Originally posted by Turias:
I'm purchasing a G5, but it isn't shipping for a month or so. Meanwhile, my 20" Cinema Display just arrived. Is there any way to attach that to my Yikes! G4? It has a 32MB Radeon video card with VGA input. So, I need a DVI female to VGA male converter. I've looked around for these, but can't find em anywhere. I have seen a DVI male to VGA female, but not the other way around.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

You can get a VGA to DVI connector, for about $300. Probably not worth it ;-)

d4nth3m4n · Aug 19, 2004, 01:02 PM

so, like this?

i dont know if $300 is worth it... and the resolutions will most likely not be widescreen.

Turias · Aug 19, 2004, 01:11 PM

Wow, those are expensive. How are they different than, http://svideo.com/dvivgafm.html which OwlBoy found for me?

d4nth3m4n · Aug 19, 2004, 01:18 PM

i think the $300 dollar one also processes the signal- something that *i though* needed to happen, as vga is analog and dvi is, well, digital. what you would do with the one on the owlboy link is a mystery to me.

Turias · Aug 19, 2004, 01:23 PM

So it might be a scam... But why would you need a box one way and not the other? For example with this DVI male to VGA female adapter?

-Q- · Aug 19, 2004, 01:34 PM

I think I got one with my Radeon 9800 I just got. I'll check when I get home and if so, it's all yours for the cost o'shipping. I have no use for it.

CatOne · Aug 19, 2004, 02:26 PM

Originally posted by Turias:
So it might be a scam... But why would you need a box one way and not the other? For example with this DVI male to VGA female adapter?

Because the VGA out is just a bunch of analog color. It must be processed and converted to a digital signal. This is going to require some work.

You can try the cable that comes with the PowerMacs or PowerBooks "backwards" and see... I'll bet $20 it won't work

Turias · Aug 19, 2004, 02:49 PM

Originally posted by -Q-:
I think I got one with my Radeon 9800 I just got. I'll check when I get home and if so, it's all yours for the cost o'shipping. I have no use for it.

That would be great! Thanks!

ratlater · Aug 19, 2004, 02:56 PM

Originally posted by Turias:
That would be great! Thanks!

It won't work. Those are for connecting a VGA monitor to a DVI port on a video card. That's easy. Connecting a DVI monitor to a VGA vid card is very difficult and will cost probably $300 for the box to do it. As was mentioned above, the analog VGA signal from the vid card must be converted to digital so the monitor knows what to do with it.

Your best bet is to buy a cheap Radeon 8500 PCI that has a DVI port...should be able to get one for under $100 I think.

-matt

Luca Rescigno · Aug 19, 2004, 02:57 PM

The Radeon 9800 probably came with an adapter to use a VGA monitor on a DVI port. Mine came with one too. Although there are adapters to use DVI monitors on VGA ports, they are rare and expensive. I think you'll just have to wait for your G5 to show up. Or you could buy a PCI video card that has a DVI port - it would be cheaper than a converter, for sure.

Turias · Aug 19, 2004, 03:03 PM

Ok. Thanks, guys. I'm definitely not ready to drop more than 30 dollars on this thing since I'll be getting a new computer in a month. I guess I'll just have to wait. I should probably take the monitor to an apple store, though, just to test it out. It would suck if FedEx broke it and I wasn't able to return it because it took too long to test it out.

-Q- · Aug 19, 2004, 10:14 PM

Yeah, sorry Turias. The two posts above were correct. It was a VGA to DVI connector, not the other way around. Sorry to get your hopes up.

Cadaver · Aug 19, 2004, 10:30 PM

Originally posted by -Q-:
Yeah, sorry Turias. The two posts above were correct. It was a VGA to DVI connector, not the other way around. Sorry to get your hopes up.

Actually, Q, what you have there is a DVI-I to VGA adapter.

It takes the analog channel on a DVI-I (DVI integrated = both digital and analog signals) output and reconfigures the pin layout to match the VGA standard. The little adapter doesn't actually do any digital to analog conversion -- hence the $19 (or less) price tag. If your computer put out a DVI-D (DVI digital only), the adapter would do nothing and a connected VGA display would remain blank.

Mac video cards fortunately put out a DVI-I signal on both the DVI and ADC connectors, thus you can connect analog monitors to either or both ports on stock Apple video cards.

To display a VGA (analog) signal on a digital-only display like Apple's, you'd need something to digitize the VGA analog signal and output a DVI-D signal -- hence the $300 price tag on VGA-to-DVI converter boxes. You can't do this with a $19 adapter.

MaxPower2k3 · Aug 19, 2004, 10:38 PM

Originally posted by Turias:
Wow, those are expensive. How are they different than, http://svideo.com/dvivgafm.html which OwlBoy found for me?

I think that probably gives you just a DVI-A signal (i.e. a DVI plug with just the analog portion active.) DVI-A is not actually part of the DVI spec, but DVI-I is (digital and analog) so DVI-A is just the analog portion. cinema displays (and most other DVI displays) pay attention to only the DVI-D (digital) portion of the signal, so that adapter won't help.