High School Teacher Question

[mking1965]

Hello,

My name is Mike and I'm a HS school teacher thinking of having a computer building class.

We already have all kinds of monitors around. Some are older, but my question is can we use an older monitor when building a PC like the one described on your site? I know that it probably wouldn't be the optimal but I'm trying to cut costs and come up with a way to use some of the resources we already have lying around.

When I added up the cost of building from your site it comes up about 1000 bucks minus the monitor and the case.

Thanks
Mike

[The Wise Monkey]

You should be able to use the monitors, but you need to check the connections on the monitors. Most old monitors use VGA connections (usually blue) that receive an analog signal. However, newer monitors and graphics cards use DVI connections (usually white) which use a digital signal.

I would assume that most if not all of your monitors use the VGA connection, so you will need to check the specification on your chosen graphics card to see that it has the correct port.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvi

[Amosmoses33]

they make adapters like this for such purposes

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814999201

[Owned]

Every video card I've purchased with DVI outputs they include adapters (DVI to VGA).