OK, I have a monitor I picked up from a store that went out of business. Nice little monitor that doesn't tak eup a lot of room and has a small footprint. It had a VGA cord that hooked up to my old laptop. No problem, until that computer had to be retired.

Now I still have this monitor and would like to use it with my current laptop, as a second screen.

I've been doing some looking into it, and it seems one could just connect the VGA to a HDMI and be good to go.

However, I have seen some conflicting information.

1) I'm assuming that a VGA to HDMI would not work, as the signal is going from the HDMI source to the VGA destination.

2) So instead of a VGA to HDMI, I think I need a HDMI to VGA, so the signal follows the correct path. I thought that was it, but...

3) I have also seen other sources state that is merely the hookup, but does not address the actual signal, and that I would nee some type of adapter that would to a conversion.

For the record:

Pic wasn't blurry on phone. Oops.


So, am I on the right path or am I missing something here.

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I could be mistaken, but I believe the adapters work both ways. According to: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001707.htm


"An HDMI cable can send an audio and video signal over the same cable. However, a VGA cable can only accept a video signal. To get audio and video, purchase a converter with a VGA connector and an audio cable or USB with audio capability.

Signal quality considerations
Whenever you convert one signal to another, the signal of lesser quality always determines the final output quality. For example, VGA is an analog signal (subject to interference and signal loss in transit), whereas HDMI is digital (higher fidelity, no signal loss). As such, the VGA signal will be the limiting factor of the final output signal.

In other words, converting VGA to HDMI will not improve the signal quality of the original output. Similarly, Converting HDMI to VGA will possibly entail a small loss of signal quality."

Also, you may be able to get a newer monitor for around the same price at a thrift store, pawn shop, or an electronics repair shop, then you wouldn't have to deal with quality loss.

I don't believe the monitor I have has sound, and I was mostly going to use it for the visual.

I just need to look into the HDMI to VGA and not the other way around.

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I don't believe there are cables that only send the signal one way or the other in the HDMI to VGA adapters. Any converter should be able to send the video signal from either side to the opposite side. Going from HDMI to VGA will just dimenish the video quality. It seems like you may have gone down the rabbit hole and are overthinking it.

I'm pretty sure Burly is right. I think any old amazon cable with hdmi on one end and vga on the other is going to work for your purposes, you just need to make sure it has the right male/female vga plus to correspond with the port on the monitor.

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Well, I sorta went through something similar before.

There are AV to HDMI adapters and there is HDMI to AV adapters.

Those two items only work one way. They only send a signal, not send and receive.

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HDMI to VGA converter/adapter is what you need. You are taking the HDMI signal/output and sending it to a VGA display.. There is no back and forth with a monitor, it either receives a signal or doesn't. I have dual monitors set up here at home on a work laptop dock that has one monitor with a HDMI to VGA adapter and one with a straight HDMI to HDMI connection. No issues with either.

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cut the red wire.....

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Should I take off my rose colored glasses to do that?

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I see Best Buy has a couple around $20.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-h ... Id=1577417
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-h ... Id=6418348

Amazon has one for under $10.
https://www.amazon.com/Moread-Gold-Plat ... 540&sr=8-3

I wonder if the local Reuse Centers might have one?

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