I am trying to get three monitors on my msi gtx 970 oc edition and I am looking for adapters (trying to use the hdmi, a dvi-i to vga, and a dvi-d to vga) but i keep finding a whole bunch of specs on adapters as active or passive. What is the difference? Which one do i need?
What is the difference between passive and active?
- Thread starter zcarm
- Start date
- Aug 3, 2006
- 28,223
- 1,514
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Active means taking a digital signal (DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D) to an analog signal (VGA, DVI-I)
Passive means taking a digital signal (DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D) to another digital signal (DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D) or an analog signal (DVI-I, VGA) to another analog signal (DVI-D, VGA).
Note DVI-I has both digital and analog signals "I"ntegrated.
Your DVI-D to VGA would require an active adapter.
-Wolf sends
Passive means taking a digital signal (DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D) to another digital signal (DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D) or an analog signal (DVI-I, VGA) to another analog signal (DVI-D, VGA).
Note DVI-I has both digital and analog signals "I"ntegrated.
Your DVI-D to VGA would require an active adapter.
-Wolf sends
Hi,
A passive adapter is an adapter that contains no powered components. In most cases, a passive adapter simply rearranges the pinouts and provides two different mechanical interfaces.
An active adapter is an adapter that contains powered electrical components that are used to convert the signal format.
The following passive conversions are possible because the formats are electrically compatible:
VGA -> DVI-A
DVI-A -> VGA
DVI-I -> VGA
DVI-I -> DVI-A
DVI-I -> DVI-D
DVI-I -> HDMI (HDMI enhancements may not be enabled)
DVI-D -> HDMI (HDMI enhancements may not be enabled)
HDMI -> DVI-D
The following are special cases. They are technically actively converted, but the DisplayPort controller contains the converter built in.
DisplayPort -> DVI-D
DisplayPort -> HDMI
The following conversions must be performed using an active converter:
VGA -> DVI-D
VGA -> HDMI
VGA -> DisplayPort
DVI-A -> DVI-D
DVI-A -> HDMI
DVI-A -> DisplayPort
DVI-D -> VGA
DVI-D -> DVI-A
DVI-D -> DisplayPort
HDMI -> VGA
HDMI -> DVI-A
HDMI -> DisplayPort
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