Help finding a DVI-D to VGA adapter... do they exist?

[alembic5]

Greetings!

I'm trying to track down a DVI-D to 15 pin VGA adapter. Not to be confused with the DVI-I to VGA, which is the common one that comes with most video cards. I was told by a local shop that these do not exist, and it is a completely different type of signal. Do any of you know anything about this? We have a bunch of IBM T and R-40's at work, and the docking stations have 1 VGA and 1 DVI-D output. We need to support dual monitors, but don't want to have to buy all new monitors for it if possible. Any information or links on this would be greatly appreciated, as I have found nothing yet. Why the heck can't they just put a normal DVI-I out on it?? Anyhow... cheers!

 

[Peter]

No. Simply because DVI-D does not carry the analog signals required for a VGA monitor, unlike DVI-I which does.

DVI-D connectors provide nothing but a fixed timing digital signal that is autoconfigured by the VGA BIOS to be an exact match of the connected panel display's requirements. These are provided by the panel display's EDID description data, transmitted through the DDC bus which is also part of the DVI connector.

Now since CRTs work exactly the other way round - the VGA card providing all sorts of timings as it pleases and the CRT unit auto-adapting to them - some external adapter box has little chance of transmogrifying DVI-D into CRT style VGA.

 

[alembic5]

Wow... thanks for the response! Now here is the next question... Can you adapt a DVI-D to a DVI-I? We have some monitors with the DVI-I style connector. I never realized there were so many different types of DVI connectors and specifications.

 

[TerryMathews]

There is no possible way to get DVI-D to output analog.

*Without the addition of a digital-analog converter I've never seen or heard of, but theoretically it's possible.

 

[alembic5]

So a DVI-I is actually an analog signal? Why do they call it DVI then? And what makes DVI-I better than a standard VGA 15 pin connector if both are analog? Thanks again for your input... I'm new to the world of DVI!

 

[Viper96720]

DVI-I has both it let's analog or digital pass through.

 

[Peter]

DVI-I is the real DVI (-D) signals PLUS an analog RGB copy for monitors that don't do digital. It's a superset of DVI-D.

The benefit of doing DVI-I is that a graphics card that has both analog and digital output for the same channel doesn't need to have two connectors for that.

 

[alembic5]

Ok, I can understand that... so is there an adapter to hook up a DVI-D output (From laptop docking station) into a DVI-I input on the monitor?

 

[Peter]

If the monitor can use either the digital or the analog signal, then yes. If that's just one of those silly analog-only monitors that use a DVI cable anyhow, then no.