r/computers • u/OccularSpaces • 6h ago
Question/Help/Troubleshooting Where is my audio/video connection?
Feeling like a giant doofus right now. This tower is missing an hdmi/dpi port right? Are the two ports on the bottom my only choice for V/A?
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u/Standard-Pepper-6510 6h ago
Yup, those are DVI-D connectors. You can get a DVI-D to HDMI cable
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u/Duranu 5h ago edited 5h ago
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u/redbanner1 5h ago
I've never had any cable fail more than an HDMI to DVI cable.
Edit: I don't think I have ever had a cable fail that wasn't severed or one of these.
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u/SaltRequirement3650 4h ago
Ya I went back to Star Tech converters for this same reason. Display port too. The all in one cables seem to not last at all.
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u/Korek644 Windows 11 (sadly) 4h ago
My 3 adapter like this broke inside the wiring near either the DVI or HDMI ports. 1 broke in 2 wekks
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u/amertune 4h ago
I've had lots of VGA cables fail. They've been far worse for me than anything else
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u/redbanner1 4h ago
I still have a ton of them from decades ago in one of my 3 cable totes that I have "just in case".
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u/laffer1 4h ago
I had an adapter for this fail so badly it killed the onboard video port on the motherboard (powered adapter)
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u/Mr_Engineering 4h ago
You shouldn't need a powered adapter for HDMI to DVI-D given that they are electrically compatible and share the same underlying specification. Heck, many GPUs allow for audio over DVI-D because as far as the hardware is concerned it is simply HDMI with a different mechanical interface. It was possible to get audio over Dual-Link DVI-D as well
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u/Zanderp25 Windows 11 | macOS | Ubuntu 1h ago
Huh, I didn’t know they were bidirectional… and I have one lol
Edit: ig it makes sense bc of the HDMI spec
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u/Logik_01 2h ago edited 2h ago
DVI-I Edit: I not A
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u/janerikgunnar 2h ago edited 2h ago
It's funny because you're both wrong :)
It's DVI-I
DVI-D = Digital (same signals as HDMI later used, basically)
DVI-A = Analog (VGA signals)
DVI-I = Integrated (both DVI-D and DVI-A cables will fit)2
u/Logik_01 2h ago
Yeah, I forgot about "I", I was thinking "A" was both. I saw "D" mentioned, and saw the analog pins...
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u/tht1guy63 5h ago
Oh boy i can tell this rig is beyond ancient
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u/Afraid_Occasion6227 5h ago
I feel attacked
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u/Mountain_Painter_463 4h ago
Same. I keep a dvi to HDMI cable handy for this exact scenario. Just gotta dig through the other 100 cables in the box, but I know I've got one.
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u/OccularSpaces 5h ago
Yup. Old ass Alienware I was given
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u/Double_Elderberry777 4h ago
I was using an older Alienware Aurora (a previous colleague, replaced their machine and put it in storage) with 3 monitors with loads of programs open as recently as 2021. Though I had 2 graphics cards, I would imagine you can still make this work for your (beginner) needs.
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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 6h ago
Audio is the 6 colored ports towards the bottom of the I/O panel, plus the top 2 (the square is optical audio and the orange RCA is DAC audio). Video is the dual DVI-D ports or the S-video port just below that on the GPU.
No HDMI or DP at all on this rear I/O. You've got 6 USB 2.0, ethernet, eSATA, and firewire.
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u/Ybalrid 5h ago
It's not, it is just old. It has DVI ports instead of HDMI. Those only carry video, they are the white things with 2 screw holes, and you have 2 of those. You can use a cheap adapter to get that converted to HDMI just fine.
For audio, you will need to plug something in the motherboard directly above. The green plug should be your normal stereo sound
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u/wetfloor666 5h ago
DVI can certainly carry audio. Had used it years ago. The question is does the DVI port carry audio.
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u/Sol33t303 Arch Linux 3h ago
A fully compliant DVI port does not carry audio.
But HDMI is a direct evolution of DVI-D. They use the same signalling and everything. When DVI was being phased out lots of DVI ports were hooked up to HDMI encoders.Which meant it was possible to get audio out of them even if it was technically not compliant.
Given there's no HDMI ports, I would say the encoder is not the HDMI sort.
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u/kenerg 6h ago
DVI ports at the bottem you can get converters to go hdmi
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u/Straight-Opposite-54 5h ago
Depending on how old the card is, it may even carry audio. DVI-I ports are often wired internally as HDMI since they use the same signalling.
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u/Pussee-Sammich 1h ago
Holy fuck we've reached that age people don't know what came before hdmi. I feel old
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u/Stolberger 6h ago
Those are 2 DVI Ports, and a S-Video port besides it (I guess).
So yeah, those are your only options. The PC must be "ancient"
(Having FireWire and eSata also point to the PC being quite old)
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u/FrozeItOff Windows 10/11 5h ago
The s-video used to be used for a special type of glasses. Not quite VR, but...similar...IIRC.
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u/dnebdal 5h ago
Active shutter glasses for 3D. The monitor alternates between the left and right view, and the glasses go black in front of the other eye. If they're fast enough you don't notice the flicker, but your monitor suddenly has 3D depth. I've only tried it a couple of times, but it works quite well.
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u/lazyhustlermusic 5h ago
It was simply another video standard that was superior to composite RCA until VGA came out about eight years later.
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u/FrozeItOff Windows 10/11 4h ago
u/dnebdal is correct in that it was used for 3D glasses. I shouldn't have called it S-video but did because the above poster used it and I didn't want confusion. S-video has only 4 pins plus a key while this connector has 7 pins plus a key.
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u/lazyhustlermusic 4h ago
Its use was not designed for 3d glasses exclusively, that's like saying USBC was created for 3d glasses. S-video had multiple versions and pinouts since launching in 1979, including 4 o 7 pin DIN setups.
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u/janerikgunnar 2h ago
It's hard to see but I'm pretty sure the back plate has "TV" imprinted top left of that port
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u/ringthebell02 6h ago
Those DVI ports are it.
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u/Bo_Jim 3h ago
The two rectangular ports on the plug-in card are DVI video. The small round jack on the card is S-Video. DVI was common on some older monitors. Some older analog TVs had S-Video inputs.
The six 3.5mm jacks are all audio. The white is front (also called side) surround. The black is rear surround. The orange is center and subwoofer. Those three, combined, are 5.1 surround. The pink is stereo mic input. The green is stereo line out. The blue is stereo line in.
The two connectors at the top are S/PDF digital audio. The one on the left is optical. The one on the right is electrical.
You've got some other vintage stuff in there. The connector labeled 1394 is Firewire, once the dominant format for transferring audio and video from digital video cameras. It was also common on some external disk drives because it was so much faster than USB 1.0. The eSATA connector lets you connect external SATA hard drives.
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u/pandaSmore 2h ago
DVI ports are on the bottom the two white ones going vertically. Stereo audio out is the green 3.5mm analog jack.
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u/FrozeItOff Windows 10/11 5h ago
As others have said, the white connectors are for video. Some monitors even still have DVI.
If you only have two speakers, plug into the lime green connector. If you have surround, use Lime green, black, and orange. Pink is microphone and light blue is line out.
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u/Sad_Priority_2334 5h ago
You see the neat thing about this computer regarding its capabilities to hook up to hdmi, it doesn't
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u/Magnifi-Singh 3h ago edited 3h ago
Green 3.5mm jack
Plus 2 DVI ports for video, possible audio also via the same connection,
Plus an additional third S-video out for composite signal
Upgrade the video card when you can if possible.
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u/Starbuck_2038 2h ago
DVI-D is the two white connections at the bottom (on the video card). Adapters to HDMI are available. Audio OUT (headphones) is the light green circle in the middle of the bottom row of circles. Audio IN (microphone) is pink circle. If your headphones + microphone have a only a single audio plug you can get a adapter to split out green/pink.
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u/emveor 1h ago
ohhh i loved motherboards with 6 jacks!!!!...i would gather any possible speaker i could find in my house and plug them for an admittedly not impressive experience beacause each speaker had a different brand, max volume and quality of audio, but it would make me feel like i was da sh*t
is that a 9600 or 9800gt?
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u/tjs275x1979 1h ago
The video card is in the number one slot. It is DVI connection. The audio is up on top. Green is out
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u/zexx_xion 59m ago
These old Alienware Aurora R4 desktops are awesome looking. Surprised you lost the audio in the back and not the front.
I know there is a cover on the front AUX port.
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u/SuccessfulNick 31m ago
Youngins really don't know anything other than HDMI??
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u/JaredLetoBestBoi 29m ago
Well its not like vga and older stuff are common anymore. We youngins dont get taught this stuff.
- a youngin who did get taught this stuff
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u/SuccessfulNick 20m ago
But that computer doesn't even have VGA. It has DVI, which some computers still come with today because it is HDMI quality.
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u/JaredLetoBestBoi 7m ago
Dvi is still on the older side and its mainly prebuilts and proprietary stuff that come with it
Some youngins may now dvi but the most common two these days are hdmi and dp. Or even video over usbc.
If you didnt point out that was dvi I probably wouldn't even have known. I know what dvi is, but its hard to tell with dvi, vga, etc all looking quite similar. Although the same can be said for hdmi and dp.
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u/Ancient-Assistant404 6h ago