Connecting Xbox360 to LCD Monitor

Hey guys. I recently bought an Xbox360 (which is freaking awesome :D). Sad thing is, I only have an SDTV and so I figured it'd be worth the while to hook it up to my computer's LCD monitor (it's a dell 2005FPW).

I already did some research and I basically need someone to help confirm the items I need to go about this process. So as far as I'm concerned, I need a VGA adapter:http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-VGA-HD-AV-Cable/dp/B000B6MLTG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1264729703&sr=8-1

And since my monitor doesn't have built-in speakers, I need a 2x RCA Female to 3.5mm Female adapter like this:http://www.amazon.com/RCA-Female-3-5mm-Stereo-Adapter/dp/B000I98ZM8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264729571&sr=8-1

As for hooking it up, all I need to do is plug in the VGA adapter to the Xbox's port and my monitor's VGA input right? And for sound, all I do is take the white/red wires from the VGA adapter and my speaker's wire, and plug them both into the RCA adapter?

Thanks for the help guys! Also if someone finds cheaper (and good quality) wires, links would be greatly appreciated!

yup, that sounds about right to me!

set my xbox up like this a year or two ago, and from what i can remember this is correct.

Sweeet, thanks. Can't wait to get this hooked up to my monitor.

EDIT: Oh yea, I was also trying to figure out a way to use my laptop as a way to get internet on the 360. I tried the other day and it didn't turn out so hot. Cause as we all know, college students are pretty poor to begin with and I don't think 70 bucks for a wireless dongle is worth it...

good luck.

youll be amazed at the graphics!

Thanks guys. I'll try out the internet thing over the weekend and see how it goes. As for hooking the 360 up to the monitor, unfortunately I'll have to wait .

Also, I just realized that the amazon link for the VGA adapter comes with an RCA sound jack. Its male to 2x female though. So instead of buying a separate female to 2x female adapter, could I simply plug in the male jack into my speaker's headphone jack? Would that work? Or would I need something like this:http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-03170-Stereo-Coupler/dp/B00007FGUF/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_b

could I simply plug in the male jack into my speaker's headphone jack? Would that work?

xMooMoo123x

Or you could go to Target and pick up a set of Logitec X-140 speakers as they have the jack with them and cost around $20.00.

They work quite well and are what I have hooked up to my office 360. It's just a nice way to get the sound working.

I use a monitor for 1 of my Xbox 360 consoles. I got 1 360 hooked up to my Samsung Plasma, a PS3 to my Sony LCD, & now after replacing 1 of the 2 monitors I use for my PC I use a monitor for my other Xbox 360. It is just a 24 Inch Dell Full HD & I hook it up via HDMI with a set of Logitech speakers that hook right into the speaker jack on the monitor, sounds pretty good & looks awesome.

Or you could go to Target and pick up a set of Logitec X-140 speakers as they have the jack with them and cost around $20.00.

They work quite well and are what I have hooked up to my office 360. It's just a nice way to get the sound working.

rgsniper1

Cool, I do need new speakers and 30 bucks ain't so bad. How is the bass on these speakers?

Why not just use an HDMI cable?

Why not just use an HDMI cable?

firefox59

Well as far as I know, there's the sound issue; my monitor doesn't have built-in speakers. I do know that if I take the plastic outer casing of the composite cables that the 360 comes with, I could fit both the composite and HDMI cables on the 360 and use the composite's red/white sound cables and just re-route those, but I'd rather not do this (I hate defiling things and I'm pretty clumsy to begin with...). Admittedly, this would be the cheaper option. At this point it's a little too late since I already ordered the VGA cables. I just hope I'm not missing out on too much by deciding to use VGA as opposed to HDMI.

At this point, I guess I'm looking for speakers since mine are ancient old. I'll be trying to hook up live later today and hopefully it'll work! And then I can toss my old SDTV and get more space in my room for other things :D

I have my 360 plugged into an Olevia LCD "TV" using its VGA input. It may be 42", but it is essentially a monitor for the purpose of this question. You will dig the added clarity for sure.

BTW, I found the VGA adapter at Target with a shiny red close-out sticker over a year ago. I never saw the adapter anywhere else since.

Haha yeah. I didn't have too much time to play around on the SDTV, but from what I saw, it was pretty ghastly...so I'm sure the quality will be a million times better on my LCD monitor.

Also, I was sort of wondering about scaling. My monitor's native resolution is 1680x1050. Will I end up with some weird stretching? If there are black bars, that's fine by me, I just don't want characters and stuff to look oddly out of proportion. I was also semi-worried about latency issues. The response time on my monitor is 12ms (grey to grey) and 16ms (black to white) with a refresh time of 60Hz. From what I read, 16ms is right at the threshold of not having any ghosting issues. Is that true? Regardless, I'd take some minor ghosting over my SDTV's quality any day.

So my cables are supposed to come Wednesday, which can't come any faster! And knowing Amazon ship rates, the cables will probably be at my house Tuesday, possibly Monday.

EDIT: okay as for speakers, been looking around for a little bit. I didn't want anything expensive or too fancy, so the top few that I've seen so far are:

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-S120-Multimedia-Speakers-Black/dp/B000R9AAJA/ref=tpi_title_27?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=482436931&pf_rd_s=center-7&pf_rd_r=10FGG3AVC8GV53BRHY1J&pf_rd_i=172456

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Z-5-USB-Stereo-Speakers/dp/B001F51G0W/ref=tpi_title_30?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=482436931&pf_rd_s=center-7&pf_rd_r=10FGG3AVC8GV53BRHY1J&pf_rd_i=172456

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IF4788/ref=s9_simi_gw_p23_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1AY461NYCSGMH6BGQPWW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RQSGYO/ref=s9_simi_gw_p23_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1AY461NYCSGMH6BGQPWW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

They all look pretty good, so I don't really know what to choose xD

[QUOTE="rgsniper1"]

Or you could go to Target and pick up a set of Logitec X-140 speakers as they have the jack with them and cost around $20.00.

They work quite well and are what I have hooked up to my office 360. It's just a nice way to get the sound working.

xMooMoo123x

Cool, I do need new speakers and 30 bucks ain't so bad. How is the bass on these speakers?

Don't get me wrong there are better speakers out there, but for the price of them they are a pretty good set. The bass isn't to bad but it's not like having a seperate woofer. Easy thing to say is that if you go Target or any like store check out the Logitech speakers and they'll usually say something about having he extra hook up with them, or at least advertise they can be used for things like the 360 or PS3. I know for a fact that the speakers I mentioned have the connector in the box. Anyway, try them out and you'll probably like them. I also think they have a set for $50.00 that has a stand alone sub that looks very similer, if you're really wanting deep base you might try that one.

Haha, no I understand that there are better speakers out there. I just need something that's cheap yet decent, cause as well all know college students are poor people =P I think I'll go ahead and get them. I am sure that anything

So I got Live to work! Sweet! The 360 is quiet at idle, but while playing games it runs a little on the loud side, which I should hope is normal. Initially when I ordered the 360 off amazon, I was afraid the shipping process would knock a couple internal things loose and break it or make it run loud and hopefully that isn't the case. It's running pretty cool, but it is pretty cold in my room to begin with. Currently installing Left for Dead 2 to the harddrive, then gonna move onto RE5 sometime over the weekend. How much faster should I expect games to run if I install them to the HDD? The installation was pretty quick, as is downloading stuff off of the marketplace and whatnot.

I am,however, noticing some minor artifacting. I am really really really hoping this is cause of the SDTV. It's fairly old, and I moved recently and the TV got sorta banged up during the process. I know for a fact that my Wii gives off artifacts, although I already confirmed that it was cause the GPU started to overhear. This isn't exactly a great feeling but I guess the moment of truth will come whenever the VGA adapter comes.

The text is sooo freaking small on the SDTV and I'm really hoping this won't be the case when I use my LCD monitor.

All in all, it's a great purchase and I totally think it's worth the time and money to get everything hooked up right.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Hey guys. I recently bought an Xbox360 (which is freaking awesome :D). Sad thing is, I only have an SDTV and so I figured it'd be worth the while to hook it up to my computer's LCD monitor (it's a dell 2005FPW).

I already did some research and I basically need someone to help confirm the items I need to go about this process. So as far as I'm concerned, I need a VGA adapter:http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-VGA-HD-AV-Cable/dp/B000B6MLTG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1264729703&sr=8-1

And since my monitor doesn't have built-in speakers, I need a 2x RCA Female to 3.5mm Female adapter like this:http://www.amazon.com/RCA-Female-3-5mm-Stereo-Adapter/dp/B000I98ZM8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264729571&sr=8-1

As for hooking it up, all I need to do is plug in the VGA adapter to the Xbox's port and my monitor's VGA input right? And for sound, all I do is take the white/red wires from the VGA adapter and my speaker's wire, and plug them both into the RCA adapter?

Thanks for the help guys! Also if someone finds cheaper (and good quality) wires, links would be greatly appreciated!

xMooMoo123x

yup, you got it. i'd suggest checking your local Toys R Us, i got my VGA cable from there for $10

Heh, just wanted to have a final update and say everything worked out perfectly! Got black bars on the top and bottom edges, but at least nothing is being stretched =) Was at least glad to see the 360 supported 1680x1050. Maybe I'll play around with the resolutions and whatnot and see if I can get rid of those bars. But for now, back to studying...

Words cannot describe how much better it is than using an SDTV :D Thanks again everyone!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I was wondering. I know the Wii has three different power modes (on, off, standby). Is there a standby mode for the 360 or does it simply just power off all the way when I select shut down?

i might want to get this setup too. it's affordable enough for me. i'm just a student, so i cant afford a hdtv. does anyone know if the xbox 360 supports the 1600x900 res?

the reason why i want a hd setup is because me2 looks like **** on sdtv, and lately my crt tv is giving me eye strain. thx people.

i might want to get this setup too. it's affordable enough for me. i'm just a student, so i cant afford a hdtv. does anyone know if the xbox 360 supports the 1600x900 res?

the reason why i want a hd setup is because me2 looks like **** on sdtv, and lately my crt tv is giving me eye strain. thx people.

Syaz1

Really? I'm looking at the listed resolutions and 1600x900 isn't on it. Unless there was an update that I don't have yet...

But the quality on an LCD is amazing compared to an SDTV. It's definitely worth the money, especially if you can't afford an HDTV.

Really? I'm looking at the listed resolutions and 1600x900 isn't on it. Unless there was an update that I don't have yet...

But the quality on an LCD is amazing compared to an SDTV. It's definitely worth the money, especially if you can't afford an HDTV.

xMooMoo123x