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Difficulty: MediumDisplay Cables and Connectors

A desktop technician is deploying a dual-display workstation using a graphics card equipped with one DVI-I port and one DVI-D port. The technician attempts to connect two analog VGA monitors using identical passive DVI-to-VGA adapters. The monitor connected to the DVI-I port displays video correctly, but the monitor connected to the DVI-D port displays no signal. Which of the following best explains why the second monitor fails to display video?

  1. The DVI-D port carries digital signals exclusively and lacks the analog pins necessary for a passive adapter to output video to a VGA monitor.Answer
  2. B
    The DVI-D port requires a Thunderbolt Alt Mode controller to negotiate analog display handshakes with legacy VGA monitors.
  3. C
    Driving two analog monitors simultaneously exceeds the total video bandwidth of standard DVI graphics controllers.
  4. D
    Passive DVI adapters automatically convert analog signals to digital, causing the DVI-D port to disable its output signal to protect display hardware.

Answer

The DVI-D port carries digital signals exclusively and lacks the analog pins necessary for a passive adapter to output video to a VGA monitor.
DVI-I (Integrated) carries both digital and analog signals, allowing a simple passive adapter to pass analog video to a VGA monitor. DVI-D (Digital) carries digital signals only and lacks the physical analog pin sockets, making passive DVI-to-VGA adapters ineffective without an active digital-to-analog converter (DAC).

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the signal requirements of the display device.
The target display is a legacy VGA monitor, which requires an analog RGBHV video signal.
VGA (DB-15) is a strictly analog video interface standard.
2
Compare the capabilities of DVI-I versus DVI-D interfaces.
DVI-I (Integrated) supports both analog and digital output, whereas DVI-D (Digital) supports digital output only.
DVI-I includes four extra pin sockets surrounding the flat blade connector to carry analog color signals.
3
Evaluate the functionality of passive adapters.
Passive adapters only re-route existing pins and cannot actively convert a digital signal into an analog signal.
Because DVI-D does not output analog signals, a passive adapter provides no signal to the VGA cable. An active converter powered by an external or bus source would be required.

Key Concept

DVI Interface Variants and Signal Compatibility (DVI-I vs DVI-D)
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Topics

Display Cables and Connectors

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