Dual Monitor - Silly Dell issue - HDMI not working?

[Cajungaltx]

New job.... they are pretty awesome about getting 'stuff' if requested... I work at home on dual monitors, and my boss and one of the other attorneys also have dual monitors on their desktops....so I inquired....next day, bossman brings in a 2nd monitor for me.

I'm using a Dell 580 Inspirion desktop - running 64 bit Win7 - i3, 3.07 Ghz with 4 GB of DDR3.... it's a great desktop for an office environment....It has a HDMI port, and a VGA port...both monitors are Dsub/VGA only - so I ran to radio shack and picked up a HDMI to DVI cable, and a DVI to VGA adapter and came back and plugged it all in.

Nada.

'No Signal' on the HDMI connected monitor.

Tried variations of the connection - the monitors work individually on the DSub/VGA cable - but not on the HDMI/DVI/VGA Adapter setup....not even if it's ONLY the HDMI/DVI/VGA Adapter setup....

I checked the BIOS to see if there was a video setting.... nada...
Checked the installed Intel Media control panel - it doesn't even see the second monitor at all...

Am I missing something? Right now, I'm considering picking up a video card and installing it or a EVGA USB VGA adapter (one of the guys in the office has one of them, and it worked yesterday when I tried it out)....

[dmcantrell]

I once went through an exercise like this with my Dell laptop and some Viewsonic monitors.

It seems that there is a DVI "standard" for how the signals are supposed to look (to an oscilloscope). Some of the manufacturers of the Dell parts cheated a little on the signal quality, but the Dell monitors were made to accept and work with the less-than-perfect signals. It was only when I tried to use a non-Dell monitor (that was designed to the actual DVI standard) that I saw the problem.

So, I guess my question to you would be : Have you tried Dell monitors?

[rbalcom]

Your problem could be the monitor. Most HDMI output devices use HDCP requiring an HDCP ready monitor. This is fairly new and older DVI input monitors don't support it and will not work when connected to an HDMI output. Don't know about your specific setup, but it is a likely cause.

[gresults]

One solution is just get a USB monitor adaptor, I had to finally do that on a computer I kept having issues with.

[RKDauph]

Right click on desktop - then Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution

How many monitors are shown?

[cjmiii]

Is there a rule against replying to a year-old thread? Bad form, I know, and I'm sure the OP has figured out her problem by now, but I can clear this issue up pretty quickly. HDMI is a strictly digital interface, while VGA is a strictly analog interface. DVI, on the other hand, can be either or both. The DVI output on many video cards that don't have separate VGA connectors is DVI-I (I=integrated), which contains analog and digital pins. It can be passively adapted to either HDMI or VGA with no issues. It is, however, impossible to adapt an HDMI output to a VGA input without an active adapter. In fact, the two interfaces use separate pins in a DVI cable. The Wikipedia has a good article with nice pictures, too. Digital Visual Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charlie

[groovyone]

Originally Posted by cjmiii

Is there a rule against replying to a year-old thread? Bad form, I know, and I'm sure the OP has figured out her problem by now, but I can clear this issue up pretty quickly. HDMI is a strictly digital interface, while VGA is a strictly analog interface. DVI, on the other hand, can be either or both. The DVI output on many video cards that don't have separate VGA connectors is DVI-I (I=integrated), which contains analog and digital pins. It can be passively adapted to either HDMI or VGA with no issues. It is, however, impossible to adapt an HDMI output to a VGA input without an active adapter. In fact, the two interfaces use separate pins in a DVI cable. The Wikipedia has a good article with nice pictures, too. Digital Visual Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charlie

Happens all the time. At least you realized it is an older thread.

[cjmiii]

I never saw the correct answer, so I figured somebody might find the info useful. If not, I suppose nobody will read it, and I can go on.

Charlie