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I have had an argument with a friend of mine, he was trying to prove that unplugging a DVI or VGA monitor cable can cause damage to the video card. I have never heard this before and decided to pull out the lead to demonstrate that it's not true and in fact after plugging it back in the machine has crashed and show on color on the screen.

So, I have reset it and done it again - same thing. After another reset it started showing that same color or just going blank randomly. I am currently using a regular DVI-to-VGA converter, which I though may be the cause of the problem appearing in the first place. So my idea is that probably with a converter you can damage the hardware, but if used a DVI monitor it would work just fine unplugging and plugging back in.

I have always done it before with VGA and can also remember doing it with a DVI cable on another machine.

Tamara Wijsman
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errordeveloper
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2 Answers2

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VGA is hot-pluggable by experience. It works almost all of the time. It is not hot-pluggable by design. The DDC2 pins (I2C device identification serial bus) and the lack of special ground break hardware are the problem.

David Schwartz
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Your friend is right, plugging and unplugging a live cable can cause damage. It wouldn't always cause damage, but sometimes.

Causing damage may be rare, but unfortunately it looks like you just proved your friend right.

JonnyBoats
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