Xbox 360 VGA Cable and Sound dilemmas

Andrew Magil · **14th November 2006, 03:00 PM**

I currently have my Xbox 360 connected up to a PCI tuner card inside my PC. This sux because i lose some video quality & get a bit of lag. So I bought a Joytech Xbox 360 VGA cable, this cable has an optical 5.1 & a stereo RCA lead built into the cable. The problem I have is, I have a set of Logitech 5200 5.1 surround sound speakers connected to my PC via my integrated sound card. This particular speaker set uses an RCA cable with 3.5mm jacks at either end to connect from the speakers to the pc.

I now have niowhere to connect the sound cable for my Xbox. Does anyone know of an adaptor, or switch box maybe, that will help me overcome this problem. I have o home theatre amp, or anything like that in my room, I also don't have a TV (which is why I had my xbox connected to my pc through the tuner card).

oreo · **14th November 2006, 03:05 PM**

Just go to any electronics / dicksmith / jaycar store and pick up a RCA -> 3.5mm jack adapter, should cost you about $1.50 or less.

Edit: Right, you don't have a z5500, you have a lower model, which means you don't have an external decoder. So the below isn't relevant to you.
__________________________________________________ _________________
I have a z5500 as well (with the vga adapter from... somewhere?)

Anyway, for better sound (surround) as opposed to just left & right as supplied with the RCA, you can pickup an optical toslink cable and plug that in (there should be a space on the back of the vga adapter where it connects to the xbox360 for this cable).

Andrew Magil · **14th November 2006, 03:12 PM**

i've though about that. the problem with that solution is as follows:

* My PC Sound Card has 3 x 3.5mm female jacks. 1 for front spkrs, 1 for rear spkrs,
and the third is for the Centre/Subwoofer spkrs.

* My logitech 5.1 spkrs use all 3 of these jacks on the back of my pc.

Even if i used a 2 x female 3.5mm -> 1 x 3.5mm jack adaptor & then plug the rca leads from my xbox vga cable into on of the female sockets & the cable for say, my front spkrs, into the other female 3.5mm jack - I don't know if im right, but I feel this would create a "mono" setup on this particular jack of my sound card.

I need something that I can connect my spkrs + xbox sound cable to, and be able to switch between sound sources, but play the sound through one set of speakers, sort of like a KVM switch I suppose, but for sound.

oreo · **14th November 2006, 03:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Magil

i've though about that. the problem with that solution is as follows:

* My PC Sound Card has 3 x 3.5mm female jacks. 1 for front spkrs, 1 for rear spkrs,
and the third is for the Centre/Subwoofer spkrs.

* My logitech 5.1 spkrs use all 3 of these jacks on the back of my pc.

Even if i used a 2 x female 3.5mm -> 1 x 3.5mm jack adaptor & then plug the rca leads from my xbox vga cable into on of the female sockets & the cable for say, my front spkrs, into the other female 3.5mm jack - I don't know if im right, but I feel this would create a "mono" setup on this particular jack of my sound card.

I understand what you're talking about. However, the VGA cable, if I recall correctly only gives you the option of optical or 2xRCA (being left and right). With a readily available adapter, you'd be able to connect the 2xRCA to 1 cable of your speakers (make sure it's the left/right speaker cable). With these you'll get left and right audio, but the centre and rear channels won't work (and you're subwoofer might not either). Because you don't have an external decoder (ie. like a z5500 or an amp) you can't simply plug in the optical cable to your z5200's.

Further, you're not going to easily find a device that will convert the optical signal from the vga adapter to the 3x3.5mm audio, because the optical cable to get 5.1 will be using some sort of dolby audio, which would require a decoder.

Really, the three options are:

1) Settle for using 2 channel audio
2) Buy a speaker set with an external decoder
3) Buy an amp which decodes dolby and has the required connections to connect your speakers to
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.
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4) search for some other sort of device that converts toslink/optical -> 3x3.5mm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Magil

I need something that I can connect my spkrs + xbox sound cable to, and be able to switch between sound sources, but play the sound through one set of speakers, sort of like a KVM switch I suppose, but for sound.

Sounds like you're looking for an amp / speaker set w/ external decoder ala Logitech z5500

Andrew Magil · **15th November 2006, 09:19 AM**

I hooked my Xbox 360 up to my HO L1925 19" LCD monitor last night. I had no problems getting the sound woring by hooking up the rca leads from the xbox vga cable directly to the A/V inputs on my Avermedia MCEA180 Tuner Card.

I powered up the Xbox, I got sound & vision, no prob. But I did notice that there was a sort of "purple haze" across the screen. I thought this might have something to do with frequency settings, so I went into the dsiplay settings on the xboxb & set my resolution to 1280 x 1024 @ 60Hz (which is the native resolution for my monitor). I reset the xbox, but still I have this purple haze.

I didn't get a chance to try this cable with another LCD last night, but I will be trying it on another LCD tonight when I get home from work. If I get this same problem on another LCD, I can only assume I have a faulty cable.

Has anyone come accross this problem with the Xbox VGA cable before? Any ideas/suggestions welcome.....

logifuse · **15th November 2006, 04:25 PM**

Hi Andrew,

You prompted me to try my VGA cable today (same Joytec as yours). It was fine on my monitor (native 144x900 but running @ 1280x768). Does your monitor have an auto settings button? Mine was skewed until I did the auto thing on the monitor, then it was great.

Justin

Andrew Magil · **17th November 2006, 08:16 AM**

Yeah, I tried pressing the "auto" settings button, it did nothing. I then went back to hooking up my xbox through my avermedia MCE A180 tuner card, but this time using my 19" LCD as well (before I was using my 17"lcd). When I hook up the xbox to the HP 19" through the tuiner card, it works fine - no lag/ghosting, or anything like that. I've got nice crisp & sharp images. I have tried the VGA cable on my friends 17" LCD TV & it worked good on that, so maybe it's some sort of compatability with the HP L1925 19" LCD & the vga cable.