QUESTION: Can I connect my computer with VGA output to a DVI monitor?

Answer: The conversion from VGA to DVI-D can not be done with a passive cable.   The DVI video cable is a VGA to DVI cable with male connectors on each end. This functions equally well as a DVI to VGA cable, although it will only work with analog DVI devices.  This VGA to DVI cable adaption allows a DVI monitor to attach directly to a VGA video card, such that a DVI-A compatible monitor can be used with a standard 15-pin graphics card.

As a DVI to VGA cable, this will connect a DVI-A or DVI-I video card to any VGA monitor, such as a CRT or analog-compatible LCD.

This is not a digital-to-analog cable. It will carry a DVI-A or the analog portion of a DVI-I signal to a VGA port. It will not convert a DVI-D digital signal to analog.

The first connector is of type DVI-A Analog, and the other connector is a standard 15-pin VGA/SVGA male.

A VGA connector as it is commonly known (other names include RGB connector, D-sub 15, mini sub D15 and mini D15) is a three-row 15 pin DE-15.

There are four versions: original and DDC2 pinouts, the far older and less flexible DE-9 connector, and a Mini-VGA used for laptops.

The common 15-pin VGA connector found on most video cards, computer monitors, high definition televisions which support VGA connections, and other devices, is almost universally called “HD-15″. HD stands for “high-density”, which distinguishes it from connectors having the same form factor but only 2 rows of pins. However, this connector is often incorrectly referred to as a DB-15 or HDB-15.

“VGA connectors” and their associated cabling are always used solely to carry analog component RGBHV (red – green – blue – horizontal sync – vertical sync) video signals along with DDC2 digital clock and data.  Where size is a constraint (such as laptops) a mini-VGA port can sometimes be found in place of the full-sized VGA connector.

The Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video interface standard designed to provide very high visual quality on digital display devices such as flat panel LCD computer displays and digital projectors. It was developed by an industry consortium, the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). It is designed for carrying uncompressed digital video data to a display. It is partially compatible with the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard in digital mode (DVI-D), and VGA in analog mode (DVI-A).

The DVI interface uses a digital protocol in which the desired illumination of pixels is transmitted as binary data. When the display is driven at its native resolution, it will read each number and apply that brightness to the appropriate pixel. In this way, each pixel in the output buffer of the source device corresponds directly to one pixel in the display device, whereas with an analog signal the appearance of each pixel may be affected by its adjacent pixels as well as by electrical noise and other forms of analog distortion.

Previous standards such as the analog VGA were designed for CRT-based devices and thus did not use discrete time display addressing. As the analog source transmits each horizontal line of the image, it varies its output voltage to represent the desired brightness.^[1] In a CRT device, this is used to vary the intensity of the scanning beam as it moves across the screen.

Alternatively VGA to DVI Cables can be purchased through Amazon.