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DVI-HDMI cable blew up my dvi port of Laptop?

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Pjotr1970   06-12-2009 at 05:45:43 PM

hi guys,

I have this problem, hope u can enlighten me. To connect my new Panasonic Plasma with my Dell xps gen 2 laptop (separate graphic card, not on board) I bought a hdmi-dvi cable. As I connected the cable (with power off) sparks where coming from the dvi port. As u guessed, no luck getting image on my Plasma.

But then I discovered the Monitor would not accept dvi signal from laptop (signal error) anymore AND HDMI ports on TV didnt work with my blu-ray anymore (worked before). The supplier claims the cable can NEVER have caused the dvi problems from my laptop and so they wont pay damages. I hooked up my laptop at another monitor and still no luck (vga is working fine).

As the plasma was working correctly with blu- ray on the hdmi port (so did the laptop dvi port with monitor) before use of this cable, my conclusion is that it must have been caused by a faulty cable (and not by high voltage hdmi ports as the supplier claims). Do u agree or am i missing something? Thnks for help.

regards,
Peter

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daedalus685   06-12-2009 at 05:56:12 PM
- 0 +

You would also be pretty hard pressed to create sparks with 5V (you can make sparks with shorting wires with as little as a couple volts, but any DVI or HDMI port is designed to make this nearly impossible, it takes roughly 500V to break down an air gap), that cable would have to be rediculously bad, or something is terribly wrong with one of the ports.

Well, I guess the cable could be bad, all you have to do is trace the pins, Pin 18 is +5V, it could be connected erronously to other pins, or it is shorted across other pins. Very simple to check for using a multimeter.




Message edited by daedalus685 on 06-12-2009 at 05:58:49 PM
------------------------------ CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) CF | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 and 2 500gb Raid0 HDDS
 Reply to daedalus685
daedalus685   06-12-2009 at 06:06:19 PM
- 0 +

I must add though, the chances of getting any compensation, even if it is a bad cable, are almsot zero.

Only certain cables would have any coverage for damaged components. Such as power bars.

They are only legally responsible for damage if they claim to cover it explicitely. Otherwise all they are responsible for is repalcing the broken cable if it came broken. You will probably be told that you should have tested the cable first.. Sorry.

------------------------------ CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) CF | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 and 2 500gb Raid0 HDDS
 Reply to daedalus685
glombus   10-24-2009 at 09:30:40 PM
- 0 +

Sorry to reply to an old thread, but I have a similar problem and wanted to chime in.

I have a Panasonic Viera LCD 42'' and have had several problems with sparks and video cables.

1-Plugged in a MacBook Pro to HDMI without the mac being plugged in and video-out worked fine
2-Plugged in a Dell XPS to HDMI with the power plugged into the Dell and got a large spark and a burn mark on the XPS
3-Plugged in a brand new PC to the Panasonic using VGA and got a large spark.
4-Plugged in same PC using HDMI out. First connected it to the PC, then to the TV. Once the cable neared the TV there was a large spark, and the HDMI port is burned on the Panasonic.

With the first two scenarios we were using crappy power strips, and the devices were plugged into separate strips.

In the last 2 scenarios, all devices were plugged into the same Monster Surge Protector/Line Conditioner.

We have an XBOX 360 plugged into another open HDMI port and it's working fine. Also have several devices plugged in using RCA connections

Doesn't seem like it would be the video-out devices at fault since the problem occurred with two different computers

The problem happened with a VGA cable too, and two separate HDMI ports/cables as well, so it does not seem like it's the cables or ports either.

I don't know why the issue only happens with computers that are plugged into a power source, but we currently think the issue is related to the electricity in our house somehow.

Thought the surge protector would've solved that issue, but clearly it's still a problem.

I'm no electrician, and am afraid to plug anything else in to my TV at this point since I've no explanation for the sparking.

Will keep testing and post any results I come across. I *will* get this to work.

Reply to glombus
glombus   11-21-2009 at 10:44:05 PM
- 0 +

TV worked with with all input devices when plugged into another part of the house on a separate circuit. Not sure what this really proves, but it would seem the problem is most likely being caused by the electricity in our building. Beats me as to how or why.

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