View Full Version : Good Quality VGA cable - where from?
I got Sineads old shuttle up and running the other day and plonked it in the bedroom so we could stream films on the TV from downstairs :)
Anyhow, I hooked it up to the LCD TV in the bedroom with a VGA cable made by Belkin. I'm getting a slight ghosting to the image and from reading around, a better quality cable might be the cure. I thought Belkin would have been fine, although it was only a £5 cable.
So, where do I get a good quality cable from? And is there anything to look out for that qill tell me it's a good quality one? (apart from price).
I don't want to keep buying cables and getting the same problem :/
:goatse: <-- Just cos he's too underused ;D
:goatse: indeed!
I really didnt think there was much in it with VGA cables these days. A good quality DVI cable sure, but VGA? What TV is it dude?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97367&criteria=vga&doy=14m9
I admit to not having tried them, so I may be wrong, but I have tried other cables in the range and they were fine, and they at least look more likely to work than Belkin. Pick the shortest one you can manage of course.
Either way, unless you're running at high resolution, el cheapo Belkin should work fine - just keep it away from other cables - especially power.
Are you positive it's not gfx card that could be causing issues? TBH if it's a short length i.e. 2m there's hardly much in it - 10m then good quality starts to become more important.
I really didnt think there was much in it with VGA cables these days. A good quality DVI cable sure, but VGA? What TV is it dude?
I didn't think there'd be much in it either, and Belkin are hardly an unknown POS brand :/
It's running from a shuttle with Radeon 7200 into a Samsung LE26R41BD LCD TV.
Maybe I could try a graphics card swap at the weekend.
I wouldn't have thought ghosting is down to the graphics card. It's be more of a stutter if it was struggling. Baddass would be a good person to ask on that front though.
Hav you got an old CRT or proper monitor knocking about you could run the same video on?
Looking at the link Mark posted, those cables are £15 whereas mine was only £5. Maybe it is a cheap POS ;D
I can take the shuttle downstairs and run it off my TFT down there. Although I'm sure I did that when setting up and didn't see any signs of problems. I've not got any other way of testing the cable though :/
Oh, jsut had another thought. There's a Buffalo wireless card sitting in a PCI slot right next to the GC. Could this interfere? Maybe I'll disable it as a quick test.
Again, really dont think that the graphics card would be at the root of a ghosting problem. Ghosting by definition is a display not responding quick enough to rapidly changing images/pixels.
If it really is ghosting you're seeing, I'd be looking to eliminate the screen before anything else.
PeterNem
14-09-2006, 14:00
Are you sure the VGA cable is making a good connection on both ends, and isn't routed next to any power cables or anything that might interfer with it?
I was getting a lot of interference with my speakers and went so far as a new soundcard (because the speakers worked fine elsewhere) before realising the problem was caused by the transformer block for a cheap desk lamp being in close proximity to one of the signal cables.
It could be a dry solder joint on the PCB - that often causes ghosting. It's easy enough to find out by plugging in a new card.
The wifi card works at a completely transparent freq compared to the gfx card. However if there is some dodgy routing on the PCB or common ground that is allowing a feeback current to come back it could cause issues. Ghosting is usually caused by a signal being coupled somewhere.
This is me talking as a electronics engineer not an IT person - so I wouldn't really pay much attention to me :p
Well there's plenty of suggestions I can try out either tonight or at the weekend :)
I'm full of thoughts on this now, hehe.
Would RF affect the VGA? I also bought an ultra cheap wireless RF keyboard and mouse to use in the bedroom. Made by logitech and £20.
Easiest answer - unplug the RF mouse and keyboard.
In all honest I seriously doubt it.
I know the easy answer is to unplug it, but I'm currently 7 miles away ;D
Will try some of this stuff when I get home tonight :p
Still, it was cool playing CS on it last night, hehe. It chugs along a bit but wasn't as bad as I thought.
MB and I were killing some time today so we decided to take a look at this problem. Tried loads of different things to eliminate any problems and still no joy, so with 10 minutes of opening time left we popped into Currs to buy another cable.
A £20 Belkin one, and guess what......it works a treat :D
Missed this thread earlier but my answer would have been "buy an expensive cable, this is a common problem with cheap ones", but you sorted it by doing just that ;)
A £20 Belkin one, and guess what......it works a treat :D
LOL, shows what I know ;D
:goatse: indeed!
I really didnt think there was much in it with VGA cables these days. A good quality DVI cable sure, but VGA? What TV is it dude?
I would've thought this was the other way round...a cheap DVI cable won't make much difference as the signal is digital...VGA is analogue so a slighly better cable may have an affect, but belkin make good cables.
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