HDMI to Vga not working

Hi, we bought our son a Raspberry Pi 3 starterkit for Christmas and unbeknown to me the monitor I bought didn’t have HDMI - I have got the Pi Hut HDMI to vga adapter but the monitor keeps flashing everytime he clicks the mouse…

Can anyone help??? please…?

Correct resolution for that monitor set?

How do I do that…?

I’ll have to have a look and get back to you.

I guess you have to look at, and maybe edit, your config.txt file? That’s lame? Google says there should be an Advanced options in raspi-config, but I’m not seeing it?

Pi Hut have some instructions/debugging steps documented here: https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/34512708-troubleshooting-a-raspberry-pi-hdmi-vga-adapter

There’s a table of screen resolutions at the bottom, and you should be able to find the correct one from where you purchased the monitor, or from the box/specifications.

If it’s “HD” it’ll be 1920x1080

If it’s “HD Ready” it’ll probably be 1360x768 but could also be 1280x720

If it’s a computer monitor it could be anything, but is most likely to be 1920x1080 - aka 1080p - these days.

Thank you - I have no idea what the config.txt file is - we are complete beginners!!!

You’ll need to either take the SD card and place it in another computer to work on- in which case you’ll see a drive called “BOOT” pop up, with config.txt on it, or run “Terminal” on your Pi, which you can find like so:

And then type sudo nano /boot/config.txt to start editing the file.

Hit the down arrow 'til you get to the bottom, and add in the config lines you need.

Then hit Ctrl+X then Y and Enter to save and exit, and then reboot.

Do you now what resolution your monitor might be? Or have the brand name/model so we could look it up?

This is the best forum ever! The monitor is HP L2045w 20” widescreen LCD monitor if that helps…

The HP L2045w has a resolution of 1680x1050 according to the specifications. Which means the following added to the bottom of your /boot/config.txt may send it the right signal (although the VGA adapter can add a spanner in the works):

hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080
hdmi_drive=2
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=58

It looks like it has a DVI-D connector in the back, too, under certain circumstances it’s possible to get an HDMI->DVI cable or adapter that will fit that port.

Here’s the adaptor we sell: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/hdmi-to-dvi-adaptor

Do you see a port on the back of your monitor that would fit this adapter? Pay careful attention to the pins, it should look at least like this- with the little slot on one end:

If all else fails with the VGA adapter, then I believe this should work as long as the port in the monitor has that slot, ie: is keyed for the adapter.

Indeed - the monitor has this port! Would the suggested adaptor still require me coding something…?

Possibly but there’s still a chance it could require similar settings. It’s difficult to tell without testing the exact monitor. It’s definitely worth adding the above into /boot/config.txt first and seeing how it goes first.

My coding career starts first thing - thanks for all the help!

1 Like

Good luck! Let me know how it goes.