VOGONS


First post, by xjas

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I have this 4-port VGA splitter (duplicator) which I may have found in the bin. 😜 I'd love to have this working for a bunch of different uses.

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When I try to use it, even just on a single monitor connected to any of the four outputs, the monitor picks up the sync signals & interprets the resolution fine, but no picture (RGB) data gets through. I just get a black screen.

This is true for DOS/BIOS/text mode as well as Windows/Linux. If I try to set too high a resolution for the monitor I'm using I even get an "out of range" error, like I should.

I opened it up hoping to find some dead caps or something inside but it looks pristine:

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Seems to be just a fairly simple analog circuit, no real ICs or anything.

What could go wrong with this thing? Where do I even start diagnosing it, anyone have any ideas?

(I tested the input & output VGA cables I'm using separately and they're all fine.)

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Reply 1 of 2, by cyclone3d

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I bet one of the integrated circuits is bad.

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Reply 2 of 2, by Malvineous

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Check the output of the voltage regulators and make sure it's in spec (one is -5 VDC and the other could be +5 VDC). Desolder the caps (at least one lead) so you can measure their capacitance with a multimeter while they are disconnected from the rest of the circuit, and see if any have gone out of range. The cheaper ones will dry out with no visible change so the only way to know whether they are still good is to measure them. The device looks pretty simple so if all that ends up ok then you may have a broken IC, but that's pretty rare unless it has been subjected to static electricity damage.

If you have an oscilloscope you can measure the voltage going into the ICs to see if it has any significant ripple on it. If it does, then it's almost certainly down to bad caps. I recently got a Behringer SRC2496 sample rate converter working again due to this. The multimeter said the voltage was spot on, all the unit's LEDs worked but the front panel buttons did nothing. The oscilloscope showed bad ripple due to failing filter caps, so I replaced the caps, the ripple went away and the unit started working again. Essentially the voltage was going up and down so much that the unit's processor was being reset 100 times a second, so it could never boot up to the point where it could respond to button presses.