Extending monitor cable

Hi guys

I am reconfiguring my desk setup, switching from two PCs and monitors to one. Only problem I have in where this one PC is situated - my Dell P2414H monitor cable is too short for the monitor to be moved to the centre of the desk.

I intend to buy a longer monitor cable to solve this. Is there any issues I should be aware of when using a longer monitor cable?

Appreciate your input.

If you use a high quality cable it will be ok, but this monitor is not high resolution and maybe a normal longer cable will do, you have to check the specifications...

bielshandy said:

I intend to buy a longer monitor cable to solve this. Is there any issues I should be aware of when using a longer monitor cable?

Click to expand...

A slightly longer cable is unlikely to be a huge problem but:

1. You didn't tell us whether you're using DVI, DisplayPort or HDMI. Max cable lengths are specified for these things. Useful summary here:


I assume these things are the same "down under"

2. Do purchase good quality cables and don't make them any longer than you really need.

Thank you for the replies. Forgot to mention that I'm using the DVI connection

bielshandy said:

Hi guys

I am reconfiguring my desk setup, switching from two PCs and monitors to one. Only problem I have in where this one PC is situated - my Dell P2414H monitor cable is too short for the monitor to be moved to the centre of the desk.

I intend to buy a longer monitor cable to solve this. Is there any issues I should be aware of when using a longer monitor cable?

Appreciate your input.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much of this will be directly applicable to you but I'll share what I found out about using longer cables.

I explored this in depth a while ago because I have my monitor on a desk in from of me and the PC in a full tower on the floor to my left so needed much longer cables than the stock 1.2 meter ones supplied with the monitor while maintaining the max res of the display.

I use an old Dell U2711 which has a max res of 2560 x 1440 and input ports for DVD, HDMI and DisplayPort. What I found was

1. if using a DVI cable, then the maximum res could only be supported with the 1.2 meter cable. Any attempt to use a longer cable resulted in the max res of the display automatically reduced.

2. if I switched to an HDMI cable then I could use a three meter cable but then had to create a custom resolution configuration to force the display to operate at the full res with the longer cable. All the information to do this was available at


and was very straight forward. I think it was only possible to do this for AMD and Nvidia cards at that time.

However, GPU technology has moved on since then and I see that my new Nvidia card display driver has a custom resolution facility built in which allows the user to "push" the display res to emulate resolutions even higher than the native spec. of the display panel. I assume something similar is possible with AMD cards.

Personally, I only want to maintain the native max res. while using longer cable.

3. when I later bought a GPU which had a DisplayPort output, I found that I could use much longer DP cables on this monitor without the need to do anything else. This is simply because DP supports higher bandwidth so if your monitor supports DP, I'd strongly recommend you use this.

4. my newer Dell UP2715K only has DisplayPorts and I use 3 meter DP cables without any problems.

I hope this helps

Trevor

You must have used pretty junky cables or had a lousy output device. I have a Dell 3007WFP-HC, and starting from the monitor, there is the original 1.8m DVI-D Dual Link cable to a $12 switchbox and then another 1.8m DVI cable to the computer, and it does 2560x1600 just fine.

Cables are also the items were retail stores (and many webshops too) make their profits. People compare the prices of the monitor, then buy for $1 cheaper at a certain store, then add the $20 cable without comparing. Even many of the "expensive" ones actually cheaped out on ferrite rings or even the copper itself by going CCA...

A DP (and DVI, HDMI) cable works or doesn't work, there isn't really any middle ground. "Gold plated", "Pope blessed" and "Extra pure alloy" are all 100% nonsense designed to get more $$ out of your pocket.