Out of Interest ... Windows 8, Screen Image Blurred, VGA Cable.

[Ray1000]

In case it happens to someone else ...

 

My next door neighbour bought a new ASUS Windows 8 tower for his desktop. His old system had a DVI? VGA cable so he went back and bought a new cable marked up at £25 ... although it was reduced.

 

Set the PC up and found the text on the old monitor (1) had a shadow or smudge extending to the right of each image or digit.

 

Tried my spare, old, monitor (2) to rule out his monitor ... and found it to be the same.

Connected his old monitor (1) to a windows 7 laptop to rule out the new tower ... still the same, and same again with monitor (2)

He temporarily bought a new monitor (3) on the assumption old monitors and Windows 7 & 8 don’t match.

Connected the brand new Monitor (3) to rule out the other two ... still the same.

 

Connected his Windows 7 laptop to my desktop monitor (4) using my cable and it worked perfect regardless of it being equally old.

Connected his Windows 7 laptop to my spare monitor (2) at our house and it worked perfectly.

 

As we were using Google Images “Black & White Text” to visually compare the performance I thought at this point it was due to his broadband connection.

 

Then the penny dropped ... I was also using a different VGA cable!

 

Used my VGA cable in his house and the new Windows 8 tower worked perfectly

 

He has since returned the new unwanted monitor and cable to the store.

 

Being £25 doesn't guarantee a cable will be any good.

 

Ray

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Ray thanks for that heads up and it is something seldom looked at is the cable, we all assume it must be OK as it's only a bit of wire with a plug at each end, yet the cable is sometimes the simple answer to a fault. I wish sometimes it was always that simple.

 

In a lot of cases, and I have seen this with industrial electronic cables, the crimped connection to the pins in the plug or socket, sometimes is either not crimped tightly enough, or even over crimped and cut through the conductors.

 

Nev.

[Ray1000]

Thanks Nev,

 

It was only found by chance ... when I brought the laptop round to try on my desktop monitor I was mainly concerned that if I moved up to Windows 7 at some point I might need a new monitor as well.

 

Ray