Is a DVI cable a DVI cable?

IAmATeaf · 21 Nov 2007 at 21:38

What I mean by this is are they all the same?

I had a brand new Vivanco DVI 1.8m cable sealed in it's packaging which I opened today and tested in the office and when plugged in the picture has horizontal lines which pulse across the screen. Tried another DVI cable and the pictures fine. Compared the 2 cables and the 1 that works has 2 blocks of 9 pins with a gap in the middle and the Vivanco has all the pins showing so was wondering if there are different types of DVI cables.

lbt · 21 Nov 2007 at 23:36

yes, there are several(?) types.

At the very least there are Digital and Digital/Analogue.
You can send a VGA signal down a DVI cable (which is how come you get simple DVI-VGA adaptors).

I think you can also get single link and dual link but I've never seen them; they're expensive and they may have different pin layouts.

The one with pins missing was probably pure digital.

sosrandom · 22 Nov 2007 at 00:59

dual link cables are for higher res (like 30"+ monitors) but should work fine on lower res

IAmATeaf · 22 Nov 2007 at 10:52

So the cable I have is a dual-link cable but doesn't work with a Quadro card and 17" TFT, well it does but you get these horizontal lines across the screen.