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Looking for a good Dual Cable LCD Monitor

B

Bacchus

Member
As the topic suggests, I'm in the market for a 17" LCD monitor - with dual (analog) cables.

My intent is to use this on two PCs (one for my DC - the other for my data server). I'd like to simply use a key to switch back and forth from one PC to the other - as I really won't need a separate monitor for both.

Any suggestions you could lend would be very much appreciated. My thanks in advance.
 
Well, 17" monitors, I don't have much experience in, but my Sony SDM-M81 (18.1") and Sony SDM-M61 (16") both do this wonderfully. You've got a DVI-I plug in the back (which can be used for either DVI connection or HD15, whatever your video card support, though it comes with a DVI-I<->HD15 cable) and an HD15 plug, so you can have two computers plugged into the monitor.

A button on the front switches between the computers, and even lets you use the speakers on the monitor for both computers, as it switches those too.

If you want the best price on the SDM-M81, check out mwave, as they're cheaper than most all the others places I checked.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I've always heard great things about Sony - but my experience has been exclusively w/ViewSonic & SGI.

Regarding the connectors: the literature on the Sony reflects that it has dual cables - DVI & analog. You mentioned DVI and HD15 cable connectors. What, exactly, is the HD15? I'd prefer to have both analog connectors (or-at least a DVI cable w/analog connector, if that's possible).

If not, I'll need to purchase a cheap DVI graphics card.
 
HD15 is a regular, analog monitor connector.

As such, with the Sony monitor, you can have one computer use a straight-through HD15-HD15 male-to-male cable (as in, normal monitor cable, plug into the back of your video card, and into the pure-analog port on the Sony monitor)

The other computer can either have DVI-DVI straight through cable, hooked into a DVI-capable video card and the DVI-I (digital/analog) port, OR you can use the included cable which has DVI at one end, for plugging into the monitor, and a regular HD15 (analog) jack on the other, for plugging into a normal video card. There's a swith right next to the DVI-I port that lets you choose whether you're using a digital (DVI-DVI) cable, or analog (DVI-HD15) cable.

The DVI-I means that it can be both analog AND digital, so you can have a cable that will connect to a normal HD15 video card. Look out if you run into a monitor that uses DVI-D, as you will HAVE to use DVI with this, as there's no way to run it with analog.
 
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