A retro problem

Left side: Unscrews from the standoff. Right side: Unscrews the standoff from the IO plate.

- But seriously, why would you buy a VGA monitor in 2024?
  (Edit: typo)
Every. Fucking. Time.
- Video card manufacturers, why u no threadlocker?
Every time
I used to use locktite on my stand-offs.
- Now there's an idea.

And when pulling it out from the mess of cables

Or when your're trying to feed that fucker back through the passthrough on a desk.
I do tech support in a school filled with old computers all connected with VGA. One day I'll hang myself with one of those.
- hey would you mind using an impact to screw one in... just to mess with someone

You have to tighten the loose one to loosen the tight one. My fingers hurt just looking at it

you a director yet? that's gandalf level wisdom
Amen to this....or just say fuck it and break out the screwdriver
- You mean that thing I set down right there but has somehow transitioned into a different dimension?
Usually VGA connector has slots for a screwdriver.

Best part is when this sucker unscrews from the port and comes off with the cable:

Ugh this stresses me out just thinking about it

The actual retro problem was when those tighty boys would start unscrewing the port instead of themselves

Pretty sure the little slit was so that you could use a flathead screwdriver. Had to do that a couple times

Then one side of the driver notch shears off
those slots were near useless.
edit to say: one trick was to use the blank expansion slot plates to gently break the vice like grip the screw had in the hex stand-off. the metal used on the cheap "digit remover" cases was sometimes soft enough to loosen the thumb screws via the driver slot without the thumb screw breaking.
still nearly useless though.
- We referred to those blank expansion slot metal pieces as "keys." They were useful lockpicks.
TIL!!
- I mean, I could’ve been doing it wrong lol

This happens because the connector is at an angle. Since it's at an angle, the screw presses against the side and jams itself in place. All you have to do is tilt the connector the other direction and the tight screw loosens right up. Easy peasy.

This would have been really good for me to know about 20 years ago.

Holy Diver!

Retro problem? I used a DVI connector on my monitor until December last year.

Yep, you are retro
DVI-D is basically HDMI with a large connector, so nothing wrong with it
I still do. If it works, it works. Until my video card self-immolates, I'll keep using it. Damn these modern infants and their cable endings! shakes fist at sky
.>
¯(ツ)/¯ it's just thicc HDMI
Retro problem? All of our monitors at work use VGA… not to mention pretty much all servers

Am I the only one that never tightened them?

I tighten them and it saved my monitor! Robbers broke in to our house, stole a bunch of stuff. The computer monitor was still there, connected to the computer, dangling from the table.
How do I know they tried to steal it? Because they tried to cut through the cable with PAPER SCISSORS, because they didn't know how to unscrew the cables.
I feel sorry for the dumb robbers. I hope they didn't pawn it and are still enjoying playing Wii Fitness without the balance board, which they neglected to take with the console.
- Oh wow, I didn't see that coming. Screw-terminal cable connections are now the Manual Transmission of computer parts.
Probably not, there are plenty of people in the world

also, both stripped somehow?

GPIB users and instrumentation automating folks know the problem is very modern.

Other than niche Keysight gear that's has three layers of nameplates because it's '90s vintage NOS, LXI and USB-TMC have replaced GPIB.
- You would think that but where I work we are still manufacturing NEW equipment with GPIB. Industry moves at a glacial pace and plenty of compainies will still pay to have GPIB as an option.

At least they had screws? I dont trust HDMI or even worse USB-C. Still using VGA monitors with adapters, never broke a single plug.

I sort of miss the screws too but it's so much better when a cable accidentally gets yanked and it just comes right out instead of transmitting the force into whatever it's attached to.
- Tell that to the USB ports on my laptop.
Good news, USB-C has two formats with screws: 1 on either side like VGA or 1 on top. Though I've never seen them in real life.
Why are you using VGA when DVI-D exists? Or Displayport for that matter.
- Because VGA used to be a standard and all monitors I had lying around are VGA only
- All those new video standards are pointless. VGA supports 1080p at 60Hz just fine, anything more than that is unnecessary. Plus, VGA is easier to implement that HDMI or Displayport, keeping prices down. Not to mention the connector is more durable (well, maybe DVI is comparable in terms of durability)
do you live ON train tracks? how often is shit just falling out around you? usually a pretty cozy fit on most things imo 🤔
do you like the display port push tab? I feel like many of those are a PITA for real
- Hate it. Though there is one that's worse.
  The mini-DP retention clip. There seems to be either wide and narrow variations or simply on-/off-spec variants.
  Those clips just jam right in the back plate of the video card.
I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop on USB-C/Thunderbolt. Don't get me wrong - I think it's a massive improvement for standardization and peripheral capability everywhere. But I have a hard-used Thinkpad that's on and off the charging cable all day, constantly getting tugged in every possible direction. I'm afraid the physical port itself is going to give up long before the rest of the machine does. I'm probably going to need Louis Rossmann level skills to re-solder it when the time comes.
Edit: I'm also wondering if the sudden fragility of peripheral connections (e.g. headphones, classic iPod, USB mini/micro) and the emergence of the RoHS standard (lead-free solder) is not a coincidence.
- On my Thinkpad the ports where both soldered to the mobo, unlike some random other USB daughterboard. Really annoying, on my T430 the port is a separate piece and can be easily replaces with a cable.
  But no, USB-c is pretty tough for me, when done right. But its still too small for no reason in Laptops.

All I can say is that we are fortunate that the overlap between "VGA ports everywhere" and "battery operated impact drivers" is almost zero on the timeline. Imagine trying to unscrew a VGA plug by hand that was tightened down to ugga-dugga-foot-pounds of torque. Of course that assumes that didn't shear the screws first.

You know you have given me a wonderful idea, I have a few friends that are in VGA heavy places
"Tightened down to ugga-dugga-foot-pounds of torque" sent me into an absolute gigglefit.

I still have a DVI monitor connected to my main pc, so it's not that much of a retro problem for me

I like DVI. I prefer it most of the time.
I like the screw in connector because I don't have to worry about it falling out of the PC or monitor, and it is more robust, less likely to be pulled/bent/broken.
Unfortunately, even monitor vendors don't seem to agree that DVI was/is good, and I've seen a lot of displays shipping without it recently. GPU makers have entirely gone to displayport/HDMI. It's the end of an era, as far as I'm concerned.
I've switched almost entirely to DP, since I can't get DVI anything anymore. I don't hate DP. I like it more than the friction fit HDMI which is prone to pulling itself out of the port for no good reason just as your opponent is about to come around the corner and all you can do is stare at yourself in the black mirror that your monitor has become and listen in horror as fartmaster69420 frags you again, bragging about it and telling you that you suck, and how he does unspeakable things to your mother over VC in his prepubescent voice.
Anyways. I miss DVI.
- I've never had an HDMI cable fall out of anything.
- VGA has outlived DVI... I can buy a new monitor with VGA and get a new VGA cable at almost any store ... DVI is hard to find anything but a DVI to VGA adapter
- I've recently plugged and unplugged a lot of monitors, and the way DP keeps itself attached it with those little claws, and you have to push a button to release it. But when there's 4 monitors plugged into the same GPU, you can't access those buttons. The struggle was real.
  In comparison the DVI connector just needed a screwdriver

I dealt with this yesterday

I'm sorry to tell you that was 20 years ago.
- Na, some of us still deal with these style connectors. Not so much for video, but it's still used for rs-232 (control signal) and other data. They are great when you dont want the connector to ever fall out.
Screw loosie in tight as you can by hand, give the plug a moderate side to side jiggle, loosen tighty first then loosie.

I never screw them in.

You like living in the danger zone don't you?
- From what? The cable falling out?
- The danger zone was screwing them in, there was always someone bright enough to tangle the cable with their legs.
  The worst part was how they came out unharmed which couldn't be said of the device's conected by it.

Excuse me, I have a 3070 feeding into one of these bad boys.

why??
- Poverty homies rise up, also I won't turn down a free tv. I upcycled a few for extra monitors.

Why is there an orange dot on the plug?

Someone accidentally tapped before/after drawing those arrows.
- lil tong squeeze to see if she's workin
just for fun

Pff. I'll be fine. I have a Hercules graphics card.

See? No twisty things.

I can still play games, right?

yeah some games
- I remember my friend had a computer with a Hercules card back then and he could play like 3 games on it. Everything else required EGA, CGA and later VGA (although I think he had replaced the computer by then).
You can play this one.
- With mangohud, just in case

"That's when I realized the threads were stripped."

lol I came across a dvi cable plugged into a crappy old lcd the other day and this is exactly what happened

Can someone explain what is this to people born in this century.

It's a VGA connector, used for screens. You can still find them if you look hard enough.
- look hard enough
  Any box of cords in any basement, attic, or thrift store
- if you look hard enough
  I think I have seen as many VGA cables as I did HDMI ones. I also have seen many people using adapters for the two standards. So I think they are still very common.
It's basically an analog version of an HDMI cable. Except no audio, only video.
It's like the yellow RCA cable, but for computer monitors instead of TVs
- Except it transmitted several times the resolution of an RCA cable
It's a security cable so no one will steal your computer because a 65 lb monitor is friggin stuck to it.
How did you get on my lawn?
It's how we connected monitors to our PCs. Before I had DVI I used that to connect my desktop to my monitor. My old laptop had that port but now they have HDMI, adding audio and some other features I never use.
- Just to tag along, the VGA signal is analog where DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort are digital

Kind of wish USB has securing screws sometimes ..the amount of times I've accidentally caught a cable and yanked one out (oo-er)

Depends on the device I imagine. Way back in the olden days I remember pulling my NES along with a handful of games down from the tv stand because I caught a controller walking by. When Xbox introduced the break away cords it was a Godsend in our clumsy house.
- Yeah, MagSafe was the best.

When I worked IT for a call center I had to deal with so many of these that I ended up only screwing one side. Still held firmly in place, less work.

Don't forget fucking bent pins.... Urrggghhhhh

No worries, just eject the lead from a cheap Bic mechanical pencil, and use the tip to carefully bend 'em back into shape.
- That's brilliant! I just have a tiny pair of tweezers and needle-nose pliers.
Can't forget about leaving pins behind cause you pulled on an angle or worse, it was owned by a smoker and gunk built up on everything.

i swear every time you think you tighten one of these evenly, they just end up like this!

Me struggling with cables: “why is god so strong?!” God: “I stopped caring about humanity, and started working out.” 💪

Why is it that it is always that side that is broken and loose?