Q: I connected my 22" cinema display to my HP laptop with a vga to DVI connector and the monitor won't work. Why?
I connected my 22" Cinema Display to my HP Laptop with a DVI to VGA adapter and the Display won't work. The HP sees the Apple Cinema Display but there is no image. Another thing to note is the power light in the lower right hand portion of the Display doesn't come on. Any ideas? I did read in the customer reviews of the Adapters that some people had the same problem with the Adapters that they had purchased on Amazon. I purchased my Adapter from Radio Shack and it wasn't cheep. Help!
Posted on Jun 1, 2012 5:03 PM
I suspect you went looking for dvi to vga adapters, found plenty of them, and are using one of those. The problem is, as you describe it, is that you want to go from analog vga from a computer to a dvi display. You cannot use a dvi to vga adapter for this. They are not bi-directional.
You need a vga to dvi adapter to connect the analog vga from the computer to the digital display and those aren't as plentiful nor cheap. They aren't passive either since it takes some electronics to actively convert the analog to digital signal.
So if you google for "vga to dvi converter", google, being google, is going to also find a bunch of dvi to vga converters or adapters. You need to ignore those and look specifically for vga to dvi converters. One of the hits is for monoprice.com (my favorite place for this kind of stuff and cables):
Posted on Jun 2, 2012 2:47 AM