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View Full Version : Hooking Up Spare Monitor to Old iMac




Gregintosh
Jul 18, 2010, 11:45 AM
While I wait for a refresh of the 27" (or decide if I should just take the plunge) to get more screen real estate, I figured why not hook up a 2nd monitor. I have an old 17" (1280x1024) monitor laying around the house (VE175 Viewsonic), which is actually pretty good quality. It would definitely be good for me to put iTunes on, Skype, and a few other utilities while I focus on work on my iMac's screen.

My Current iMac is a 2007 Aluminum 2.4Ghz (first generation of the aluminums). It has a mini-DVI port. I got the mini-DVI to DVI dongle, a converter to change DVI to VGA, and I plugged my VGA monitor into it.

The iMac sees and recognizes the model of my monitor and even lets me change resolutions and its placement in Display settings, however the monitor just goes to sleep as if there was no signal.

Any ideas???

EDIT: I just tried it out with another spare monitor I have, a 15" Dell, and it does the same thing. Recognized fully by the iMac, lets me change settings, but it too just goes to sleep rather than displaying anything. This tells me it is probably not the monitors fault as both work fine when hooked up to other sources (like a laptop with VGA out).



iBookG4user
Jul 18, 2010, 11:47 AM
IIRC this was an issue when using the mini-DVI to DVI and DVI to VGA adapters. You'll need the mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

Hellhammer
Jul 18, 2010, 11:48 AM
The mDVI to DVI adapter is likely DVI-D thus cannot carry analog signal what VGA uses. Get mDVI to VGA adapter (http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9320G/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1MzA)