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#1 Jun 06 2011 at 9:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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A very dear friend gave me a Vizio flat screen TV, and I decided to set it up as a monitor for my computer. I hooked it to my PC using a VGA double-ended cord, but my gfx card takes a DVI connector, so basically my system goes TV > VGA cord > VGA/DVI adapter > gfx card.

Now for the problem: I have no red. Every color is just a mix of blue and green. Anything that is red shows up as black. Is this likely an issue with the cord setup, or is there something wrong with the TV? It plays normal television (over an analog cable hooked to cable TV) with fine colors. Also, sometimes when I first turn it on using the computer, the red shows up right, then suddenly winks off and leaves me with the awful blue-green. Any suggestions?
#2 Jun 06 2011 at 10:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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Thats usually a bad or loose cord. Specfically, somewhere along that run you are dropping either pin 1 or pin 6. It's usually pin 1 that is the problem since its the outermost corner pin, and if any of the adaptors are loose, you will see that. The cord itself could also be broken internally. Or the adaptor could be wired wrong. Wiggle and press fit each of the adaptors and see if the red comes back for even a second. if you see it intermittantly flicker, it means the cord has a break somewhere and you should get a new one. It could also be the pin on the card or the TV, but in my experiance thats the least likely point of failure.

We have a workbench PC build / test lab at my other job with 8 LCD monitor bays. the cords on those stations get plugged and unplugged thousands of times a year, so we tend to see quite a bit of the similar issu. though for some reason we usually lose the yellow pin.
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#3 Jun 07 2011 at 10:56 AM Rating: Good
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I fiddled around with the connections at the adapter, and so far it seems to be working. Thanks for the advice! If things go wrong again, I'm positive it's something wrong with the double-ended VGA cord. Can you use ViVo cords for this? My video card has a slot for it.
#4 Jun 07 2011 at 5:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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depends what you mean by Vivo. If it's a standard HDMI or Displaylink port, then yes it is possible to convert that to either DVI or VGA, or run directly to the TV. If your video card has a spare DVI port as well, you can go Direct DVI to HDMI, assuming your TV has such a free port, and get a better quality signal. I'd need to see a picture of the ports, or know the model knumber of the TV and the specific video ccard to tell you for sure though.
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#5 Jun 07 2011 at 5:28 PM Rating: Good
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Here's a reference image (not my card.)

My video card has the top two connector types. My TV has the top and bottom kind. Will getting a cord that fits the round port (on both ends) work? I don't know what that kind of connector is for.
#6 Jun 07 2011 at 7:33 PM Rating: Decent
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AshOnMyTomatoes wrote:
Here's a reference image (not my card.)

My video card has the top two connector types. My TV has the top and bottom kind. Will getting a cord that fits the round port (on both ends) work? I don't know what that kind of connector is for.


The top connector is s-video (even says so on the card). It's kind of a crappy video carrying system. It's really intended for displaying analog video (so kind of a low quality TV signal methodology). Connecting from a computer to your TV, you'll be better off using the VGA connector. It'll work better for handling the native resolutions your computer will put out, and it's higher resolution capable to boot.

About the only thing I'd ever suggest using S-video for is if you need to connect a DVD or VCR player directly to your TV and don't have a spare component video port and don't want to spring for any sort of video/sound component control box. It's kind of kludgey even for that though, since you then have to route the audio through a different channel.

Use the VGA connections. For this use, it'll work much better. It's recommended that you keep the refresh rate to the video card at 60. You can experiment with resolution settings as well. Since your card has a DVI connector, it likely will go higher than what the TV will accept.

Edited, Jun 7th 2011 6:34pm by gbaji
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#7 Jun 07 2011 at 8:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah S-video is going to be lower quality than vga. To be honest, I'd buy a better video card with at least 2 DVI ports. You should be able to get an improvement for under $100
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#8 Jun 09 2011 at 7:42 PM Rating: Decent
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Wait. Your video card just has an S-video and *one* DVI connector? You still will want to use a DVI to VGA cable instead of the S-video. If you can't manage with the VGA-VGA cable acting as an extension, you can buy longer DVI-VGA cables. Assuming you have no need for another monitor other than the TV, that'll work. But as Kao says, better video cards are relatively cheap.
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