DVI question

I'm setting up a media center PC we have to run dual monitors - one monitor is a regular PC monitor, and the other is an HDTV we bought. The PC has an nvidia fx5200 with a VGA port and a DVI port. The monitor and HDTV are both VGA.

I have an extra VGA cable and DVI-VGA converters that came with my video card, but apparently the fx5200 has a dual-link DVI-D port and my 7800GT has converters for a dual-link DVI-I port.

http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html

if you scroll down to the bottom there, the only difference between the two are the four pins around the blade.(you'll see it if you look)

I'm thinking that cutting those four pins off of one of the converters should make it work. What do you guys think? Will it ruin the converter/DVI port?

Depends on how the other end is and how they're wired internally. If they're identical, it may work.

My understanding is that those 4 pins around the flat blade are what carries the analog signal. Without them, you cant get an analog signal at all. If the video cards DVI connection doesnt have the matching 4 receptacles, it wont output a analog signal.

You didnt mention what other connections your HDTV has. If it has a HDMI connection, you can use a DVI->HDMI adapter. Obviously, you wont get any audio out of the DVI port, but you wont have to worry about digital to analog conversion.

it does have an HDMI port, but i would need to get an HDMI cable on top of a DVI-HDMI adapter. I'm not worried about audio. (PC speakers are better anyway)

if those four pins are used for the analog signal, then it doesnt matter because a DVI-D port is digital only, unlike DVI-I which is both.
<--- so because of that do you think it would be worth a try?(I have two so if i screw one up its alright)

EDIT: Just realized - the reason why these adapters work is because DVI-I ports have both analog and digital, and in order to transfer it to VGA it needs the analog signal. Since my fx5200 can't offer that, I need to go the HDMI route.

I found a DVI-HDMI cable (yay for no extra adapters) I just ordered.

Thanks Mpegger for giving me the idea