DVI-I or DVI-D what monitors and cards have what?

[videobruce]

After owning a Plannar PL190M LCD monitor for 2 months and having problems with the DVI signal getting reconized all the time and talking to Planar a few times, I called Plannar again and out of the blue I was told this monitor needs a DVI-D signal!
This was one of the two guys I talked to before and nothing was said about this.

Now, after looking at the specs of the monitor in the manual which doesn't say it even has a DVI connection and looking on the site that mentions "Digital DVI" which after hearing this I assume means DVI-D and buying another video card with the thought there was a problem with the old card I have a setup that doesn't work properly because of the lack of information and compatability.


I did as quick look around through the ATI, PowerColor and Sapphire sites and some don't mention what connector they use, or it isn't clear. Plannar surely didn't say it was required.

The equipment involved are:
http://www.planar.com/Products/flatp...el/PL190M.html
http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9100.asp
http://www.power-color.com/r96a-c3n.htm


Questions:
How many others have or had this problem? Or even aware of this?
How much a issue on other monitors is this?

I spent a couple of months researching LCD displays and all the forums I visited, nothing was brought up there is a problem here.

[sechs]

The difference between DVI-D and DVI-I is that DVI-I also has the analog information (and some extra pins to carry it). All DVI-I connectors will accept DVI-D (digital only) cables and send the appropriate information to the monitor; they will also accept DVI-to-VGA adapters and send the appropriate signals to the monitor.

Most monitors have DVI-D connectors; most video cards have DVI-I connectors.

[videobruce]

I now understand this now, BUT I don't understnad why the monitor would care if it is a 'D' or a 'I' card since the 'D' part of it should be the same!

[Peter M]

As I just said on Anandtech too, if the monitor is stupid enough to use BOTH the analog and digital part of DVI-I (and lets the card decide which one to use, making the result rather random), just use a dedicated single-purpose DVI-D cable so that the graphics card doesn't see the analog part being in use.

[videobruce]

Hey, stop following me around..................
I never thought of that. I wonder if then DVI connector on the monitor would use the analog part of the connector and why? The DVI cable that is being used is the one supplied with the monitor.

I hope you understand what I meant by using both inputs with 2 separate cables.

[Peter M]

The one DVI channel on a Radeon card comes from the main Radeon chip's internal DVI transmitter. Card design can hardly screw that up.

Exactly what is the problem you are experiencing?

[videobruce]

It will boot up in the analog mode.
I have to switch it over to digital via the front panel control on the monitor.

[sechs]

I've never heard of or seen a DVI-I cable. I have no idea why anyone would want one.

What do you have connected up to your monitor?

[Peter M]

The Radeon cards (as well as typical NVidia chip cards) always enable all the outputs where they detect an attached device. If you connect a single display device through more than one connection, then sure, the display device might default to an input you don't want it to default to. That's hardly a technical fault.

[videobruce]

Originally posted by sechs
I've never heard of or seen a DVI-I cable. I have no idea why anyone would want one.

What do you have connected up to your monitor?

Both cables from the video card to the monitor.
The VGA goes through a KVM switch.