I have a Macbook laptop computer. It has a mini dvi port and I bought a mini-dvi to dvi adapter a while ago. It's DVI-D. Someone gave me a CRT monitor that has an atached vga cable and I decided to have a dual display setup. I don't want to buy an expensive apple mini-dvi to vga adapter so I was wondering if I could use my mini-dvi to dvi adapter, dvi-d to vga adapter, and connect that to the atached vga cable of the crt monitor? Specifically this one on ebay:

Link (http://cgi.*********/DVI-D-M-to-FEMALE-VGA-CONVERTER-ADAPTER-FOR-HDTV-LCD-TV_W0QQitemZ190168712594QQihZ009QQcategoryZ74939QQssPageName ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

Someone told me it will not work and I will have to get a mini-dvi to vga adapter because VGA does not carry digital. I know vga doesn't carry digital, but then what would be the point of a dvi-d to vga adapter? Doesn't that convert it?

converters for digital to vga are available but cost around $350 or so

Adaptors that take the analog out are cables that have the DVI-I or DVI-A on one end and db-15 on the other - or split the digital out to a dvi-d and the analog out to a db-15

These cables are relatively cheap since its just copper

So what did I buy? And will it work?

i have a related problem. I bought a Philips 15" LCD (15PF5120/28) but found out the DVI plug on the back only takes analog. So I bought a VGA-DVI-A connector and ran it off my old Dell PC just fine.

Now I have a new Dell, with better everything, including an ATI graphics card with a DVI-D out. Same with my Mac Mini.

But when I use the DVI-VGA plug supplied by both manufacturers, and then connect the analog VGA-DVI cable (that worked fine on the VGA out of my old Dell), nothing happens.

I would have thought that once you transfer DVI-D into VGA, that it's now an analog signal, and that should be picked up fine by the monitor's DVI-A in. But no joy. Does it have something to do with HDCP?

If I have to get a converter (DVI-D to DVI-A) what does that look like and how much are they now?

oh - and if both the Dell and Apple supplied DVI-D-VGA plugs work to simply strip out only the analog signal from the DVI out of the computers, then will a simple DVI-A to DVI-A cable work?

[I haven't tried that yet as I assume that if the DVI-D-VGA-DVI-A connection doesn't work, neither will DVI-A to DVI-A, but i could be wrong]

any help much appreciated!