vga cable length

BioHazRd

Does anyone know how long a vga cable can be. One of the guys at work wants to put a monitor 20 metres away from the video card.
This is not a computer setup, so a kvm switch would not be an answer - although it is a matrox g400 video card and a standard monitor

Kix

I don't know off hand what the limit is, but I'm pretty sure there is one. Black Box certainly used to sell a product to do this.

K

tribble

There is no fixed max lenght...

It depends on the resolution and refresh rate that you require
and to a lesser extent the amount of RF interference in the vicinity...
(oh and the particular hardware)

For high res. (1200*1600) your looking at 10-12ft max...
Belkin make a high quality (6ft.) vga extension lead (compustore £25ir!)

I've used a 6ft low grade (trust cable extension kit) for res. of 1024* 768 (@75Hz) with no problems...

Booster boxes are available try www.dabs.com for one

or maybe try this...
www.dabs.com
"Extend SVGA signals over 75 metres
Mfr code: F1D088U
Quicklinx: QGHWS
£29.00 ex. vat st."


b

seamus

Can I ask why? Will the keyboard and mouse be 20 metres away too? If I needed a computer farish away from me, I'd just make it ftp/telnetable. Just curious

BioHazRd

Thanks tribble, I'll try those links - hopefully they will have something suitable

In answer to your curiosity Seamus, this is part of a medical monitoring network, so telnet is not an option as the os runs in the background and is not accessible to the user. What they want is to be able to view data at a point that is 20 metres from the server. The monitoring software generates the screen.

Hope that answers your question

BTW I would still like to know what my theoretical max cable length is if anyone knows

BioHazRd

Just did some checking, and apparently you can run a vga cable for 15 metres before any signal deterioration (ref: an old blackbox catalogue)

Thanks for all the help guys

Farls

I have a VGA cable 25 metres long running through a simple switch box to both my monitor and lite-pro (projector) never noticed any distorsion or loss in quality and i've tried everything from dvd's to winamp visualization. Very handy is the new logitech cordless keyboard and mouse....good as a remote control!

Farls

Hobbes

you could try looking up cybex boxes and see what length they have set as their max.

Not sure if it would do anything, I do know extending a printer cable past it's limit without a booster is very bad (bye bye printer).

Bard

hmm- I thought it was about 8m myself - but these responses were helpful for me too (will be hooking up my new laptop to a projector which projects onto an 8 foot high screen).

Kegser

The length of the cable is entirely dependant on its construction.

I've seen VGA cabling that reaches up to 450 ft... although it will only work in 640*480 and lower.

I've also seen VGA cabling that reaches up to 200 ft and will display resolutions up to 1900*1200....


Such cables costing several hundred squids, but you get the idea.