VGA extension problem

recently bought a new 32" LCD and managed to get the display running perfectly in 1080p with a male-male VGA and the help of this thread

I then bought a 5m male-female VGA cable so I could extend it around my room to my desk and now its messing up. If I take the extension out of the equation, all works perfectly again, but when I put it back in it recognises my TV as the smaller of the 2 screens and limits it to 800x600 60hz. Seems obvious to me that the 5m cable is to blame but I don't understand why. Are there different quality VGA cables? Do I need to just get a single male-male cable that will reach the length of my room? Or is there some extra settings that I'm not aware of if im using multiple cables?

Thanks in advance

Multiple cables are never a good idea. But, the main issue here is probably either:

The driver on the Mac is unable to push the signal longer than about 15' (5 meters).

Or

The male to male cable is not capable of passing a strong enough signal that far.

Up front, I'd tend to think it's the latter if you've got the typical 1 meter or smaller cable in front of it. Yes, there are different grades of cable for VGA.

Only way to know for sure which it is though, is to plug that 5 meter cable directly into your Mac or maybe an adapter instead of another cable.

I'd suggest trying something like these from monoprice. Not even sure if they ship to the UK or not, but they even come with audio cable attached. If you're looking for a shop there, make sure the cable is called SVGA and not VGA.

About the best help I can give, as I haven't used VGA in at least 10 years.

Edit: As an experiment, you could try running that cable across the middle of the room instead of around the walls to see if the signal improves.

wow I never knew cable lengths had a part to play, thanks for pointing me in that direction. I had a quick google and found this on yahoo answers. The guy recons that

1600x1200@60Hz won't work well past 1 meter (3.5 ft)

Click to expand...

so I guess i'm really pushing the boat out with 6m's for 1080p and using 2 cables to get there.

Thanks for the Monoprice link, will really suck if they cant ship my way because those prices are great. I cant seem to find the equivalent anywhere for less than £30, literally about x6 more. Anyway, I have to go to university in an hour, and they'll let me rent a PS3 out for a week for free, so I'm hoping they might let me borrow a long male to male cable over night. That way I can try before I buy, might save me £30 too

Thanks for the quick response, I'll keep you posted

Yeah, monoprice is a great company for cabling here in the U.S.

You might look at Amazon.uk - I've found some decent pricing on occasion for others there.

And if you do try to order from monoprice, keep us posted as to whether they will ship there or not.

edit: As the guy suggested in the link you found also, if you've got a DVI port on that monitor, I'd suggest going that way also. A 20-25' run should be less of a problem with it.

Yeh I know VGA is a little out dated, but the only adapter I currently own is a mini DVI to VGA which I've grown used to using over the years. And as I say, when I initially tried this it worked perfectly with the 1m cable so I thought all I'd need was the extension. Now that you mention other alternatives, I suppose I could just look into getting a mini DVI to HD cable too or even mini DVI to component if any of these things exist? I'll have a browse on Monoprice and Amazon like you say and feedback the possibilities, shipping included etc. Cost is my main issue though so we'll see

Also, im at uni now, so about to attempt to blag any one of these things for the day haha

Thanks again

Big fail on borrowing cables. I was stupid enough to admit it was for personal gain. Should have fabricated some story about how I couldn't do my coursework because my monitor had to be far away from my tower for some reason...

Ok my final solution was to ditch VGA completely. My lecturer suggested either buying a single longer cable, or buying a VGA accelerator for my current cables, but I didn't like the idea of getting any of this new stuff and finding it still didn't work for whatever reason. So instead I've bought a new adapter - mini dvi to hdmi, and a 10m hdmi cable. Should be sorted now

I got both these things from ebay since cost was an issue for me like I said, but I did have a look into the Monoprice thing for you and all their shipping details are here. Looks to me like they'll ship anywhere in the world, but you have to pick up the price. Couldn't tell you how much though.

All should be good now, thanks for your help. I'll of course be back in a couple of days when HDMI fails me and everything goes wrong haha.

While you're waiting on those, if you plan on attaching the audio to the TV also, you may want to read the 3rd post in this thread.

thanks for the thought, got that one covered already luckily. Got an aux hooked up to my stereo. Works a treat and is flexible since I can use it with iPhone too

wow! they just got here already! I didn't pay any post and packaging for it either so thats a total score. Everythings working perfectly! Thanks very much for your help

Thanks for the post back. Good to know there's not an issue with a cable that long.