famous beagle
Well-known member
Quick (or not-so-quick) back story:
Once upon a time I had two computers: one for office (with flat screen monitor) and one for music (with CRT big clunky monitor), and everything worked great.
I moved to a new house and started to set up a new studio. Originally, I wanted to put a window between the control room and adjoining studio loft, but eventually decided it was too expensive. So I opted to get a little camera to mount in the loft and a TV monitor for the control room so I could see the loft.
I was at a garage sale and saw a Samsung flat screen monitor with both a CPU (VGA) input and audio/video inputs. I thought, "Great, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can replace my big clunky CRT with a flat screen and also have it be switchable as a TV monitor to see what's going on in the loft. It was marked for $30 and advertised as "works perfectly"; I offered them $10, and they took it. I was ecstatic.
I quickly set it up to check its function, and it looked good. So I set out my CRT on the lawn for free, and it was gone within an hour. I soon realized though that I hadn't disconnected the VGA cable from the CRT when I gave it away (and the Samsung hadn't come with one), so I was without a cable.
I ordered a cheap, new $7 VGA cable off ebay and hooked it up when it arrived. Again, all seemed well.
Then I tried to record something and noticed I was getting a 60-cycle hum. And the screen on the Samsung was lightly flickering. Since I had just set up my new studio in the new house, I thought it might have something to do with the wiring. Anyway, after hours of frustration, I began to unplug things one by one while listening to headphones to see when the hum disappeared. The second thing I unplugged was the new Samsung monitor, and presto! Hum was gone.
I thought ... "This sucks, but at least I can still use it as a monitor for my camera. I'll just have to buy another monitor and hope it doesn't hum. But then I swapped monitors as a test and took my flat screen (from my office computer) to plug into my music computer. Worked great with no hum. That (office) monitor has a hard-wired VGA cable, so it goes wherever the monitor goes. That will come into play later.
So I thought ..."Whatever...Everything works now." I plugged the Samsung into the office computer and thought I had it all licked. The office is also in the control room, so I could still use the Samsung to monitor the loft studio. This would be even better, because I wouldn't have to switch between my DAW and the camera input on the same monitor.
I had forgotten, of course, about the flickering. It wasn't terribly obvious, but it was noticeable and annoying. I researched that, tried adjusting the refresh rate, tried everything, but I can not get it to stop.
(I'm trying to make this quick.)
Anyway, so I said "Screw it, I'll just get another monitor." My wife's monitor had just tanked also, so she needed one as well. Hit Craigslist and found two flat screens for $15 each. One of them came with a VGA cable, and the other did not.
So we had four monitors:
My office flat screen (a MAG)
My Samsung flat screen (white)
My new Dell flat screen
My wife's new Samsung flat screen (black)
And we had 3 VGA cables:
The one I'd purchased off ebay for the white Samsung
The one that came with the new black Samsung I bought for my wife
The one that was still with my wife's computer after her old monitor died
(And my MAG flat screen has its own attached one.)
Sooooo. We hooked up my wife's Samsung with the cable that was attached to it. The display worked, but it had a blue tint that we couldn't get rid off. So we tried her old VGA cable. That fixed the problem. Great!
I hooked up my new Dell flat screen to my music computer using the VGA cable I'd purchased for the Samsung. It looked slightly blurry, but it was liveable. (It wasn't flickering, just blurry a bit) I thought, "Ok, I can deal with this." Then I tried to record something, and ... yep ... the hum was back. Motherf*cker!
Then my wife suggested that I swap out the monitor (VGA) cables to see if that has any affect on the hum. After hearing (in another thread I started when I first got the hum issue with the Samsung) so much about "grounding" issues and power supplies, I was sure that this would have no affect. But, what the hell.
So I took the VGA cable from my wife's computer and hooked it up to my music computer with the new Dell flat screen. Not only was the screen perfectly clear, but the hum was gone!
I then tried using my ebay VGA cable on my wife's computer, and sure enough, the display was slightly blurry. (That computer is not configured for recording, but I'm wondering if there would be a hum present if it were.)
So .... Long story short: This VGA cable that I bought off ebay for $7 seems to be not only causing a slightly blurry display but also a hum!
As a final test, I tried my wife's VGA cable (the known good one in terms of display and audio) with my white Samsung on my music computer. The hum was still there, and the display was still flickering. So I guess the white Samsung is just problem-ridden. Although, the display is just fine when using it in TV mode; I made sure to check that thoroughly. So I'll still use it for that purpose (to monitor the loft studio)
Anyway ... has anyone else had any issues regarding monitor cables causing hum or any other problems? I always thought that they'd either work or not work, but I guess that's not the case. My new Dell flat screen monitor will be clear as day and totally hum-free with my wife's VGA cable, but it'll be blurry and noisy with the one I bought off ebay. And everything else has stayed exactly the same. That's the only variable!
Is there anything I should look for in a VGA cable to make sure I won't have issues again?
Once upon a time I had two computers: one for office (with flat screen monitor) and one for music (with CRT big clunky monitor), and everything worked great.
I moved to a new house and started to set up a new studio. Originally, I wanted to put a window between the control room and adjoining studio loft, but eventually decided it was too expensive. So I opted to get a little camera to mount in the loft and a TV monitor for the control room so I could see the loft.
I was at a garage sale and saw a Samsung flat screen monitor with both a CPU (VGA) input and audio/video inputs. I thought, "Great, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can replace my big clunky CRT with a flat screen and also have it be switchable as a TV monitor to see what's going on in the loft. It was marked for $30 and advertised as "works perfectly"; I offered them $10, and they took it. I was ecstatic.
I quickly set it up to check its function, and it looked good. So I set out my CRT on the lawn for free, and it was gone within an hour. I soon realized though that I hadn't disconnected the VGA cable from the CRT when I gave it away (and the Samsung hadn't come with one), so I was without a cable.
I ordered a cheap, new $7 VGA cable off ebay and hooked it up when it arrived. Again, all seemed well.
Then I tried to record something and noticed I was getting a 60-cycle hum. And the screen on the Samsung was lightly flickering. Since I had just set up my new studio in the new house, I thought it might have something to do with the wiring. Anyway, after hours of frustration, I began to unplug things one by one while listening to headphones to see when the hum disappeared. The second thing I unplugged was the new Samsung monitor, and presto! Hum was gone.
I thought ... "This sucks, but at least I can still use it as a monitor for my camera. I'll just have to buy another monitor and hope it doesn't hum. But then I swapped monitors as a test and took my flat screen (from my office computer) to plug into my music computer. Worked great with no hum. That (office) monitor has a hard-wired VGA cable, so it goes wherever the monitor goes. That will come into play later.
So I thought ..."Whatever...Everything works now." I plugged the Samsung into the office computer and thought I had it all licked. The office is also in the control room, so I could still use the Samsung to monitor the loft studio. This would be even better, because I wouldn't have to switch between my DAW and the camera input on the same monitor.
I had forgotten, of course, about the flickering. It wasn't terribly obvious, but it was noticeable and annoying. I researched that, tried adjusting the refresh rate, tried everything, but I can not get it to stop.
(I'm trying to make this quick.)
Anyway, so I said "Screw it, I'll just get another monitor." My wife's monitor had just tanked also, so she needed one as well. Hit Craigslist and found two flat screens for $15 each. One of them came with a VGA cable, and the other did not.
So we had four monitors:
My office flat screen (a MAG)
My Samsung flat screen (white)
My new Dell flat screen
My wife's new Samsung flat screen (black)
And we had 3 VGA cables:
The one I'd purchased off ebay for the white Samsung
The one that came with the new black Samsung I bought for my wife
The one that was still with my wife's computer after her old monitor died
(And my MAG flat screen has its own attached one.)
Sooooo. We hooked up my wife's Samsung with the cable that was attached to it. The display worked, but it had a blue tint that we couldn't get rid off. So we tried her old VGA cable. That fixed the problem. Great!
I hooked up my new Dell flat screen to my music computer using the VGA cable I'd purchased for the Samsung. It looked slightly blurry, but it was liveable. (It wasn't flickering, just blurry a bit) I thought, "Ok, I can deal with this." Then I tried to record something, and ... yep ... the hum was back. Motherf*cker!
Then my wife suggested that I swap out the monitor (VGA) cables to see if that has any affect on the hum. After hearing (in another thread I started when I first got the hum issue with the Samsung) so much about "grounding" issues and power supplies, I was sure that this would have no affect. But, what the hell.
So I took the VGA cable from my wife's computer and hooked it up to my music computer with the new Dell flat screen. Not only was the screen perfectly clear, but the hum was gone!
I then tried using my ebay VGA cable on my wife's computer, and sure enough, the display was slightly blurry. (That computer is not configured for recording, but I'm wondering if there would be a hum present if it were.)
So .... Long story short: This VGA cable that I bought off ebay for $7 seems to be not only causing a slightly blurry display but also a hum!
As a final test, I tried my wife's VGA cable (the known good one in terms of display and audio) with my white Samsung on my music computer. The hum was still there, and the display was still flickering. So I guess the white Samsung is just problem-ridden. Although, the display is just fine when using it in TV mode; I made sure to check that thoroughly. So I'll still use it for that purpose (to monitor the loft studio)
Anyway ... has anyone else had any issues regarding monitor cables causing hum or any other problems? I always thought that they'd either work or not work, but I guess that's not the case. My new Dell flat screen monitor will be clear as day and totally hum-free with my wife's VGA cable, but it'll be blurry and noisy with the one I bought off ebay. And everything else has stayed exactly the same. That's the only variable!
Is there anything I should look for in a VGA cable to make sure I won't have issues again?