Connecting an XBOX360 to a PC monitor

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Hi guys, I don't know if any of you will have any experience with connecting a 360 to a PC monitor but I've been thinking about implementing this for a while now and it's all a bit too confusing for my simple mind!!

I have a Samsung 22" Pebble (SM2232BW) widescreen monitor.

The monitor has x2 DVI ports at the back. I can find plenty of HDMI -> VGA adaptor cables but not so many HDMI -> DVI? Is it as simple as finding one of those and plug & play?

From various forums and product reviews, I've read that it might be necessary to buy a seperate cable for audio as well but I assume this might only be for HDTV's as they will obviously have speakers whereas this monitor doesn't? I have my own seperate sound system.

Any help would be appreciated. Cheers.
 
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Thanks for the quick replies guys. Sorry about the link, it's removed now.

Fenris - I have no idea if it has optical in mate. I'm not very technical at all (as you may have guessed by this point!!)

My speaker/subwoofer system is: Creative Inspire 7.1 T7900. I also have a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card. I can't find product links for either of these on overclockers anymore, sorry.

Do you have any idea how I would go about connecting up audio from a 360 to those? The speakers themselves are plugged into the panel on the back of the subwoofer but my green/black and orange audio jacks obviously go into the soundcard ports at the back of my PC.

Reaper - I had thought of that as I currently use a CRT monitor as well and have to use a VGA/DVI adaptor to get it to work with my graphics card (GTX 260). It kind of sounds like one too many adaptors though haha. Can anyone shed any light on this methods suitability?

cokecan - Should I already have the official adaptor or would I need to buy that seperately? I bought a 360 arcade if that matters?
 
Cokecan - Thanks dude. I will check when I get home if we have that. I'm assuming that it can be bought seperately if not and then can use in conjunction with a seperate HDMI -> DVI cable for the video output.

Monkeyspank - I moved house recently and have a helluva lot less space to implement surround sound properly so I've stuck with just two speakers, basically 2.1 instead of 7.1. Surely that would make things stereo in my case anyway? lol. Would you suggest I go with cokecan's plan and check for the official adaptor?

Eggyoke - I definitely have two DVI slots on mine. The real problem here seems to be audio though as effectively, I've found some reliable HDMI to DVI cables now. How did you get sound working on yours dude?
 
if your monitor does have 1 VGA and 1 DVI as Eggyoke says then you can simply use the official VGA cable, this has the VGA connection plus both L&R phono sockets and an optical audio output all in the same cable

I'm 100% positive that they're both DVI slots on my monitor, unlike Eggyoke's. Reaper mentioned earlier in the thread using a DVI to VGA adaptor and putting the official VGA cable in that way?

I already have one of the little DVI to VGA connector/adaptor things as I'm running an old CRT monitor at the same time that comes with a VGA cable.

Would that work or would there be issues connecting a HDMI to DVI cable to a DVI to VGA adaptor all at the same time?
 
Kreee - They should be DVI-D as cokecan points out

cokecan - You're damn right this is getting complicated haha, unnecessarily so I might add! You'd think doing this would be made easier?!

Buying the 360 audio cable is not a problem but it would be nice to have bass too! Monkeyspank seems to think that I will lose the bass doing this?

The weirdest thing is, every single review I find of my monitor displays them as having x1 VGA slot and x1 DVI but I'm absolutely positive mine has x2 DVI. Very annoying indeed.
 
I thought this was confusing earlier this morning.. now my heads fried! hahah.

I really don't know anything about cables. My knowledge goes as far as "this end of the cable has the same shape as this hole here, so it must be for it!"

You guys have very kindly indeed thought of some great stuff and identified many issues/problems and possible options to go forward with but there seems to be a conflict in ideas developing and I'm like the lost animal in the herd. I need sheparded! haha.

If at this stage you had to make a choice about how to best connect the console to the monitor & have everything in working order (including audio) how would you do it? What products would you need (links if at all possible?) and what connects to what etc etc. I really am a complete simpleton on this topic lol.

Thanks so much for everything so far guys.

EDIT: Also, I will check tonight regarding what cables came with the 360 arcade and also double check those ports on my monitor but I'm cast iron sure theyre both DVI.
 
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You need to find out if your monitor has DVI-I sockets before anyone can make any recommendations, check your manual.

I'll check it after work mate, thanks. I just went on the Samsung website and even they don't have the model number of my monitor to look the manual up online?!
 
OK guys, I just got home from work and to my surprise (and embarrassment!) the monitor does indeed have a VGA port ahah. Typical, sorry lads. So thats x1 DVI, x1 VGA.

What exactly would you therefore recommend me doing to get this working to its fullest?
 
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