iBook: Mini-VGA to DVI?

Read this:

http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html

Scroll down to the "How do I know which cable to use?" section.

The basic answer is that, even if you get a converter that connects the VGA cable to the DVI port, it will still be analog, and you won't get any major advantages out of having done it.

Umm...

I don't think the guy who wrote the second post understood your question...

Fact is, the iBook ONLY has a mini vga port, so mini vga-dvi is the way to go (besides, mini vga to vga costs the same).

Keep looking, it's on there for $19.95 American.

appleretailguy said:

Fact is, the iBook ONLY has a mini vga port, so mini vga-dvi is the way to go (besides, mini vga to vga costs the same).

Click to expand...

The iBook comes with a mini-VGA to VGA converter. At least, mine did.

And the 2005FPW comes with a VGA port. The OP asked whether he should use the DVI or VGA port on the Dell. My answer was that there will be no signal improvement, even if the Dell supports DVI-A signals. So why not use the VGA line, for which no additional hardware is required?

Plus, according to the Dell website here, the DVI port on the 2005FPW is a DVI-D port, not a DVI-I port. So it may not support a mini-VGA to DVI converter unless it also includes a ADC... and that's not going to be cheaper than the free VGA plug that came with the iBook....

But if I misunderstood something, please explain, so I can understand too....

in a nutshell, the best your iBook outputs is vga, no converter will change that. using a converter and a dvi cable will only be sending a vga signal through a dvi cable (i.e: not any better), so don't waste your money; as suggested above, use the dell's vga input

Do you know that you're going to need to install the screen spanning hack in order to get a higher resolution than 1024x768 (what the iBook's screen is). If you don't, the dell's screen will look terrible stretched and everything will be huge and weird looking.

http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html

Here's the spanning hack. In addition, you're stuck with min-VGA to VGA on the iBook G3/G4. If you get a Dell 2005FPW just install the hack and plug the VGA out into the VGA port on the LCD. Exposé and some other GUI transitions will be slower but you can at least have spanning instead of mirroring.