Forewarning: I'm going to crosspost this in both the General and the Hardware Mod forums since I'm not sure which would get the most traffic for this sort of question. Why isn't there a hardware/peripherals forum?
Is anyone out there currently using this VGA box? Have you had any problems with it? I just got mine and I think it may be faulty. I plugged it into my RCA digital TV and it will not display an image. I also have my Dreamcast VGA box hooked up to this TV, it supports both 640x480 and 800x600 @ 60 hz Progressive Scan so I'm sure it's supported by the Xbox VGA box.
Here's a quick rundown of what happened. I just received this in the mail yesterday. I enable 480p on the dashboard, reboot, no picture. I plug in the VGA box and toss in a game. I give it time to boot up, no picture. I checked the video connection by unplugging and plugging the VGA cable back in, the screen shifts and gives me an "unusable signal" error. So I know it's getting a signal, just not the right one. I plug in my optical audio cable to the box to verify the game is actually running by listening to the sound output. I'm getting nothing. I look closer at the box and realize the jack is so recessed that my cable doesn't snap into place. I have to push HARD on the end of the cable into the box and then I'll get audio. If I let go of the cable it loses the signal. Well, that's some shit. BTW - This is a Monster optical audio cable made for the Xbox. But it's the same Monster cable for any other video game console like PS2.
So next I try using the alternate composite b/w output. I plug this into the front RCA jacks of my TV and it shows the picture in black and white. Oh wait, nope...it goes out all of a sudden. I check the connection, it's ok. I reboot, it shows again. I load up a game and it's still OK. I get halfway through the opening sequence of DOA Volleyball and the picture goes out again. OK, so apparently the quality of the box is now suspect.
Luckily I have 2 other actual PC monitors to test this with. I plug it into monitor #1. I don't get a screen until the dashboard loads. Once the dashboard is loaded I get a screen that's about 2 inches tall and rolling vertically very quickly. Well, it's at least displaying an image on this monitor...but it's definitely not a legible or stable one. I then plug it back into my TV while I know it's displaying something, my TV still won't show it. Next I plug it into my most commonly used monitor. When I boot up the Xbox animation is not displayed, the monitor says "Invalid Frequency". Then the dashboard loads and it actually displays. But the screen is shifted far left, the colors look dull, grainy and washed out, and there's a really strange purple border surrounding the picture. I load up Sega GT and the game is just DARK. I turned up the brightness and contrast on my monitor to compensate but it just doesn't look right.
So anyways, that's my experience with my VGA box up to this point. I emailed the company last night knowing they're in the UK so it's only been about 12 hours since I wrote them. I haven't heard back yet but I haven't exactly given them a lot of time at this point. I just wanted to hear what other people's experience has been with this box.
This post has been edited by slizzap: Feb 11 2003, 02:17 PM
