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I have a Dell Inspiron Desktop 620 (just purchased this year) and it has 1 VGA connection and 1 HDMI connection. all of my spare monitors only have VGA and so was wondering if the convertor cable from VGA to HDMI will work on this computer to allow me to have a 2nd monitor? looking for a way to utilize my spare monitors that don't have the HDMI connection.

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4 Answers

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Depends and you mean HDMI to VGA since you're desktop has HDMI and Monitor has VGA so you'd need to transform the HDMI connection to VGA. For the most part, it depends on your graphics card, can it actually power two monitors? For that you'll either do some research on your graphics card or even your desktop since some graphics cards can only power one of the video outputs at a time as they don't have enough power or memory to produce for both. If you are considering buying one to do this then you better borrow one first to test, because some computers can do multiple monitor setup while others can't.

To be honest, most Dell Inspiron Desktops can't work with two monitors especially since they use integrated graphics cards but then again desktops have come a long way so maybe now they can. I'll keep looking on it's specs though to see if I find anything useful.

Bottom Line: Try it out, it's easiest way to find out.

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You could pick up a VGA Cable splitter, we use them at our workplace with 2 monitors and they work great! We have a bunch of Dell stations.The only thing you would need to worry about is like Richardhsu mentioned, whether or not the video card will support dual monitor. But for reference, cable looks like this.

enter image description here

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I think this cable only duplicates the video on 2 displays. I don't see why this can offer 2 separate video signals. I've seen these cables used for presentation PC's, they duplicated the same video to both desktop monitor and an overhead projector/beamer. – Hans Jun 6 '12 at 18:38
@Hans I use them here at my workplace, I can extend the desktop to other monitor that way I have more work space. – C-dizzle Jun 6 '12 at 18:51
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Well, a quick look on Monoprice doesn't show any direct HDMI to VGA type cable or adapter. However, I did find a VGA <-> DVI and DVI <-> HDMI adapters that could theoretically be linked together to hook up the monitor. I don't know if this would work or not, since VGA is an analog signal and HDMI is a digital signal.

With regards to if the video can drive multiple monitors, I would imagine you'll be fine. My 3 year old Latitude can drive two displays just fine, granted they aren't huge resolutions which might be your limiting factor.

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DVI comes in two 'flavours' (on the same cable): Analog and digital. Converting VGA to DVI (A) is indeed a question of just finding the right cable. Converting DVI (Digital, different pins on the plug than DVI analog) to HDMI is also easy. But DVI (A) is not equal DVI (D), so you will not get a working result with this method. – Hennes Jun 8 '12 at 0:02
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If you haven't sorted this already you could try one of these HDMI to VGA Adaptors, or this one i've used some of these at work for HP Folio Ultrabooks as thay only have HDMI out. They seem to work OK, and are quite cheap.

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